DP 390 
.F85 
Copy 1 



vol. IV, No. 2 January, 1919 

Smith College Studies 
in History 



JOHN SPENCER BASSETT 
SIDNEY BRADSHAW FAY 

Editors 



IN THE TIME OF SIR JOHN ELIOT— THREE STUDIES 

IN ENGLISH HISTORY OF THE SEVENTEENTH 

CENTURY 

By MARY BREESE FULLER 

Associate Professor of History in Smith College 



NORTHAMPTON, MASS. 

Published Quarterly by the 
Department of History of Smith College 

Entered as second class matter December 14, 1915, at the postoffice at Northampton, 
Mass., under the act of August 24, 1912 



SMITH COLLEGE STUDIES IN HISTORY 

JOHN SPENCER BASSETT 
SIDNEY BRADSHAW FAY 

EDITORS 

The Smith College Studies in History is published quarterly, in 
October, January, April and July, by the Department of History of Smith 
College. The subscription price is seventy-five cents for single numbers, 
two dollars for the year. Subscriptions and requests for exchanges should 
be addressed to Professor Sidney B. Fay, Northampton, Mass. 

The Smith College Studies in History aims primarily to afford a 
medium for the publication of studies in History and Government by 
investigators who have some relation to the College, either as faculty, 
alumnae, students or friends. It aims also to publish from time to time 
brief notes in the field of History and Government which may be of 
special interest to alumnae of Smith College and to others interested in 
the higher education of women. Contributions of studies or notes which 
promise to further either of these aims will be welcomed, and should be 
addressed to Professor John S. Bassett, Northampton, Mass. 



SMITH COLLEGE STORIES IN HISTORY 
VOL.1 

No. 1. "An Introduction to the History of Connecticut as a 

Manufacturing State" Grace Pierpont Fuller 

Nos. 2, 3. "The Operation of the Freedmen's Bureau in South 

Carolina" Laura Josephine Webster 

No. 4. "Women's Suffrage in New Jersey, 1790-1807" E. R. Turner 

"The Cherokee Negotiations of 1822-1823". .Annie Heloise Abel 

VOL. II 

No. 1. "The HohenzollErn Household and Administration in 

the Sixteenth Century" Sidney Bradshaw Fay 

No. 2. "Correspondence of George Bancroft and Jared Sparks. 

1823-1832" Edited by John Spencer Bassett 

No. 3. "The Development of the Powers of the State Ex- 
ecutive in New York" Margaret C. Alexander 

No. 4. "Trade of the Delaware District Before the Revo- 
lution" Mary Alice Hanna 

VOL. Ill 

No. 1. "Joseph Hawley's Criticism of the Constitution 

of Massachusetts" Mary Catherine Chine 

No. 2. "Finances of Edward VI and Mary". . .Frederick Charles Diets 

No. 3. "The Ministry of Stephen of Perche During the 

Minority of William II of Sicily" John C. Hildt 

No. 4. "Northern Opinion of Approaching Secession".../,. T. Lowrey 

VOL. IV 

No. 1. "The Problem of Administrative Areas" Harold J. Laski 



Vol. IV, No. 2 January, 1919 

Smith College Studies 
in History 



JOHN SPENCER BASSETT 
SIDNEY BRADSHAW FAY 

Editors 



IN THE TIME OF SIR JOHN ELIOT— THREE STUDIES 

IN ENGLISH HISTORY OF THE SEVENTEENTH 

CENTURY 

By MARY BREESE FULLER 
Associate Professor of History in Smith College 



NORTHAMPTON, MASS. 

Published Quarterly by the 
Department of History of Smith College 



JWon< 



grajjg 



D 



**$« 



rH r COU-W9* 
FEB 21 «C 



CONTENTS 



Preface page 

I. Sir John Eliot and John Nutt, the Pirate 71 

II. James I and the Parliament of 1621 95 

III. The Negotium Posterorum 1 10 



Preface 



For hints in regard to sources for the first of these studies 
I am indebted to Mr. R. G. Marsden, of London, the author of 
"The High Court of Admiralty" and other writings on naval 
history. Mr. Marsden was also kind enough to point out to 
me certain mistakes in numbering in the Record Office Calendar 
of the Admiralty Court papers and therefore to facilitate the 
accuracy of the transcript work done for me there by Miss E. 
Salisbury. 

The chronological gap between the second and third studies 
is due to the impossibility of my obtaining at the present time 
satisfactory evidence from any original sources concerning the 
French marriage treaties of 1624. Certain comments which 
might be suggested by Eliot's narrative in the Negotium Pos- 
terorum are also withheld until more research in regard to 
those treaties can be made. Professor Gardiner's accounts of 
these negotiations do not seem to me clear or well founded. 

November 20, 1918. M. B. F. 



In the Time of Sir John Eliot: Three Studies 

in English History of the Seventeenth 

Century 



SIR JOHN ELIOT AND JOHN NUTT, THE PIRATE 

In the year 1622 1 Sir John Eliot received his title of office 
as Vice Admiral of Devon under Buckingham as Lord High 
Admiral. The office had grown out of the two offices of "keeper 
of the coast" of Henry Ill's time and of the Lancastrian "con- 
servator of truces" 2 . The holders of these earlier offices were 
merely shifting deputies of the Lord High Admiral with little 
individual responsibility. Henry VIII, however, among his 
other reforms of naval procedure, instituted for this place a 
permanent official of social rank and prestige, usually a county 
gentleman. His title was Vice Admiral and his business was 
to levy seamen, to inspect ships going to and coming from the 
harbors, to exact bonds and to look after prizes. The Vice 
Admiral got in return for this office a certain amount of wreck 
and salvage money, usually about one-tenth of each prize, part 
of which it was customary to tender to the Lord High Admiral. 
The Vice Admiral was rare, however, who, under stress of 
continual temptation, did not add to this acknowledged toll a 
fringe of less lawful receipts. 

The first record we have of Eliot tugging in the harness of 
office is a letter to the Privy Council in April, 1623, 3 in which 
he complains of the scarcity of seamen for impressment, "many" 
he says "having gone to Newfoundland." Newfoundland or 
Avalon, was exciting popular interest just at this time. Dis- 
covered by Cabot in 1497, colonized by Whitbourne, Vaughan, 
Mason and most recently by Wynne, an agent of Sir George 



a R. G. Marsden, Eng. Hist. Review, XXIII, 741. 
3 Oppenheim, Victoria County History, Devon, 486. 
3 S. P. Dom., James I, CXL, 42. 



72 Smith College Studies in History 

Calvert, it was an alluring bait to adventurers who were not 
yet aware of its bleakness but were already getting profits 
from the fish in its waters. 4 The impressment trouble, however, 
was soon overshadowed by a larger woe, the struggle with the 
famous pirate, Captain John Nutt. Correspondence about this 
affair looms large in the state papers of the remainder of the 
spring and summer of 1623. 

Piracy in the later sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries 
was a name applied to many types of naval adventure. The 
legitimate enemy from Spain was called a pirate. A neutral 
ship carrying an enemy's goods was a pirate. An English sailor 
like Hawkins or Mainwaring who brought gold and glory to 
the king on one voyage and plundered the English coast on the 
next voyage was also a pirate. While, of course, the "heathen 
Turk" with a cutlass from Algiers or Morocco was a chief 
example and flaunter of piracy. Piracy was the plague espe- 
cially of the western coasts afflicted with constant attacks of 
each of these types of plunderers. "Sixty men, women and 
children were taken off a church in Mont's Bay at one time." 5 
Ships were advised to consort with each other for protection. 
A suit of 1617 condemns the master "of Jonas (a merchant 
ship) for not keeping company with 'Abigail', 'True Love', and 
six other ships, whereby two were captured by Turks and lost." 6 

Though the coast dwellers feared these marauders they often 
joined hands with the pirates of "Christian kind". Mainwaring, 
a "gentleman pirate", as he called himself, whose life very 
nearly coincided with that of Eliot, tells in his essay, "A Dis- 
course of Pirates", of the recruits that he gained from the 
home shore, of the food and refreshment eagerly ready for 
him wherever he might land. 7 In 1631 Captain Plumleigh wrote 
to Sir John Coke about the pirates in the Irish Sea : "An Irish 
Harbor was one of their strongholds. Mr. Cormat, a confeder- 



4 John Mason, Discourse on Newfoundland; Prince Society, 1887, 

131. Whitbourne, A Discovery of Newfoundland, London, 1620. 

5 Vict. Co. Hist., Devon, 481. 

6 R. G. Marsden, Trans. Royal Hist. Soc, XVI, 82. 

'United Service Mag. New Ser., XL, 137. 



Sir John Euot and John Nutt, the Pirate 73 

ate, though a man of fortune in that kingdom, received and 
supported these people in the harbor of Broadhaven." 8 

According to Main waring, not only subjects but many sover- 
eigns in Europe danced to the piping of the pirates. He boasts 
of his pardons from Dukes of Medina, of Sidon and of Flor- 
ence and says "The Dey of Tunis swore by his beard that if 
I would stay with him he would divide his estate with me." 
Allowance must be made for Mainwaring's imagination as for 
the imagination of Captain John Smith. But at the same time 
that the English government was fitting out Monson's expedi- 
tion against Algerian pirates in 1620 it was issuing one pardon 
after another to English depredators of the coast. Mainwar- 
ing himself was pardoned, knighted and made lieutenant to the 
Warden of the Five Ports and Governor of Dover Castle be- 
tween 1617 and 1620. He signs himself at the end of his 
essay "Your Majesty's new creature." 9 The trouble which he 
gave to the government lingered on after he made his con- 
fession. Hill wrote to Brereton in 1623 : "Mainwaring, when 
he was a pirate plundered a French ship, under value of £1000, 
restitution for which having been vainly sought the King of 
France has issued letters of reprisal for £15,000." 10 As in 
the case which we shall take up in detail, these gentlemen pi- 
rates were often confident of support from the highest officials 
of the king's council. Oppenheim says : "Their friends, agents, 
informants and customers were to be found in every class of 
society." 11 

When Eliot took his office of Vice Admiral, the technical 
jurisdiction over pirates captured along shore was in the hands 
of the common law courts, where it had been put in 1526. This 
arrangement left to the admiralty court judgment only over cases 
dealing with the pirate caught on the open sea. Nevertheless the 
line between the admiralty court cases and the common court 
cases seems to have been very wavering; the functions of the 



G. Berkley, Naval Hist, of Britain, London, 1757, 463. 
Discourse of Pirates, 137. 
9 S. P. Dora, 1619-1623, CLX, 2. 
'Vict. Co. Hist., Devon, 489. 



74 Smith College Studies in History 

admiralty court were particularly irregular, "fluctuating with 
the growth and development of the law." 12 And always the 
admiralty court had been under close direction and supervision 
of the Privy Council. This fact, combined with the complica- 
tions arising from the pirates being often in this period of ex- 
ploration and discovery a help rather than a hindrance to the 
state, caused in all important trials of pirates an emphasis of 
the judicial functions of the Privy Council and Star Chamber. 
Appeals in behalf of the pirate in such cases were constantly 
handed up from the juries of the shires. And the Vice Ad- 
miral evidently leaned hard on the same right of appeal to the 
sustaining power of a higher authority in conflicts of his au- 
thority with that of mayor or sheriff. 

Such was the legal situation when Eliot in the course of his 
duties as guardian of part of the southwest coast fell foul of 
Nutt. The struggle which he underwent in the Nutt case against 
injustice in high cases was a prologue to his fight in later years 
against Buckingham. 

Captain John Nutt, according to his own statement during 
examination before the admiralty court, came from Limpston 
in Devonshire and had then been a pirate for nearly two years. 13 
Fuller, in his "Worthies", 14 states that Nutt had helped an Eng- 
lish ship bound for Newfoundland when attacked by French 
cruisers but near the island he backslid. "In August Laste Paste 
was twelve months this examinate entered into and began the 
unlawful course of taking ships and goods piratically." The de- 
tails of this backsliding in the Newfoundland waters are given 
in a letter of Thomas Spurwaie, the Mayor of Dartmouth, to 
the Privy Council on June 12th, 1623 15 as follows : 

"May it please your Lord h P s to understand that about two 
yeares since on John Nutt, an English man, beinge placed 



U E. S. Roscoe, Law Rev. and Mag. Ser. 5, XXIV-XXV, 153. 

"High Court Admiralty Papers, Oyer and Terminer Ser. 1-49, 9 
Jul., 1623. This series deals with criminal cases tried by judges on 
circuit, holding a special commission from the king for such trials. 

14 III, 418. 

15 S. P. Dom., James I, CXLVI, 63. 



Sir John Eliot and John Nutt, the Pirate 75 

gunner in a shipp of this Harborough bound for the Newfound- 
land Where being a Rived in the time of Fishinge gott to him 
selfe other Wicked and ill disposed P sons - and entered a French 
shipp Which hee posest, and With her tooke by subtiltie a 
Shipp of Plymouth of good force by which he there commited 
many outrages and greate spoyle upon poore fisher men, sithence 
which time he possest him selfe with a Flemishe shipp about the 
burthen of 140 Tonnes, In Which shipp he latly cam att ancor 
in a place called Tor baye neare this Harbour in hope of a 
pardon Which he assayed With some Gentelmen to P cure > after 
some assurance hereof (as it seemes) ranged againe the Coast 
Where formerly he had robbed maney of our nation and tooke 
a shippe of Colchester." 

Spurwaie's story about the ravages of Nutt is confirmed by 
the news in another letter from a ship's master, Thomas Fownes, 
in the employ of a Bristol merchant, Richard Holworthy. 16 
Fownes says: "I would entreat you that if you maye laye houlde 
of him, that you woulde a rest him for Fifteene hundred pound 
in losse. that I have by him, by the meanes of tackeing my shipp 
in the Newfoundland I wish I hadd a thowsand for it, I will 
asshure you I am soe muche the wourse for him ; he hath sioce 
pece of ordnance of myne now in the shipp; fower minniones a 
boute 18c a pece; and two minnions a boute 15c a pece; he 
toocke my shipp in the midst of there fishing, and toocke all 
there sallt : and all there vittells from them ; and toocke a waye 
a Cabell and a hawser w th three barrells of powder, and all 
other munition and provitiones, and afterward turned a waye 
the shipp, leaving them noe vittels to bring them home and 
left my master and companey in the Newfoundland with ane 
ould Portingalle shipp, and my man hath bine trubbled in Lawe 
for that shipp in Portingall ; and it hath cost me 200 li to buye 
my peace from the Portingalls soe that I hadd a duble losse by 
that vellon Nutt; I praye you doe your best to helpe mee to 
Recover my losse from him as well as your own, if you maye 

10 H. C. A. Miscellaneous Bundle, 857. Plymouth, 19th May, 1623. 



76 Smith College Studies in History 

tacke him in hulland or in any other place; and I will doe 
the licke for you if I maye aprehend him, in these parts." 

This same letter has as its main object complaint of Nutt's 
attacks on Holworthy's own ships off the coast of Devonshire. 
It is worth quoting further for its vivid style, for its amusing 
mixture of piety and anger, as well as for its characterization 
of Nutt. 

"I am sorrey that I have noe better newes for to send 
this Messenger unto you ; the barcke that should have brought 
your skines and Tallowe unto mee, came in yesterdaye in the 
Morning; whoe was tacken one fraydaye laste at the Lands 
end, being the 16 th of this present, by Nutt the Pirate, whoe 
toocke awaye all your goods, both tallowe and skines, and allsoe 
toocke from the young man that you sent suche clothes as hee 
hadd, and some money and lickewyse the moste parte of suche 
clothes, as the companey hadd, he is a Merciles vellon, and 
hath a crew of wicked vellones with him, that feares Neither 
god nor man ; hee brocke upe all your letters, and there did 
see that the goods was but consigned unto mee, and that it was 
your goods, the master and the younge man intreating him 
verey muche to leave the goods ; I hope you will macke the 
best use of it, Acknowledging that nothing comes to passe, but 
by gods providence, and therefore that it hath plesed the Lord 
to suffer him, to bee ane instrument to correct bothe you and 
mee, but in the end he shalle not escape gods fearful Judgments 
to falle uppon him, without hee speedely repent, and macke satis- 
faction; for my parte I am a thousand pounde the wourse for 
him ; and nowe this is a greate losse unto you ; but howsoever I 
am asshured it is fallen upon one that will thainckfully tacke 
it, is (sic) a love and favor of god towards you, and patiently, 
to submitt your sellfe under his hand. Whoe cann and will 
restore it to you again, in a greater measure, if hee see it fitt 
for you, the master of the barcke and allsoe the younge man 
that you Imployd ; doe Reporte that Nutt will goe for hulland 
with suche goods as hee hath tacken, and there macke salle of 
it; he toocke divers shippes and barckes that daye, that your 



Sir John Eliot and John Nutt, the Pirate 77 

barcke was taken, and he useth all men verey badly; he came 
out of Ireland wheare hee trimed his shipp ; I thincke the younge 
man hath written you from what place hee came I doe verely 
believe that either hee will goe for hulland or for some parte of 
Ireland againe, but I rather thincke he will goe for hulland and 
therefore I thincke it fitt that you should write unto some 
friend at Amsterdam that if hee com theather, or thereaboutes ; 
that they would ley houlde one him, and allsoe one your goods. 
I doubt not, but if hee com theather, and that hee maye bee 
tacken ; that you maye have satisfaction for your goods but 
you must use all exspedition ; I praye god he goe for hulland ; I 
am some what doubt full of it." 

Another captain of Holworthy's, Richard Betterton, added 
his tale to that of Fownes, writing from Plymouth the 20th of 
May. 17 He brings out the fact of Nutt's having a place of re- 
fuge in Ireland and, like Fownes, shows the pirate's habit of 
disposing of his goods in Holland. "Butt nowe wee be in 
plymouth and all things ill for all o r goods is taken from us which 
grives mee to the hearte wee came from Elly oase the 12th 
day of may and the 16th day in the morninge all our goods is 
taken from us bytwene the lands end and mouse holle by Cap- 
taine nutt an English man of warre and all English men When 
hee came aboard us first we weare in good hope hee would 
take nothinge soe he cald for o r Cocketts and o r bills of Ladinge 
& never made mention to take a waye any Thinge tell hee sawe 
the letter directed to Mr. Fowens then hee bid his men out with 
it as fast as they could o my good frind Mr. Fowens lookes for 
my liefe every Day if hee could take mee hee would hang mee 
and I looke for his goods soe wee told him that the goods was 
yo rs and that it was butt sent to him he bid us bee contente for 
twas but a folly for us to speake to him for you weare p ar tners 
together and hee would have it all if it weare a thousand pounds 
worth of good he lyes beetwene the lands End and Mounts bay 
of and on soe that it is not possible for none to scape him they 
ses all they will lade their shippe w'th goods ther and then 



"H. C. A. Miscellaneous Bundle, 857. 20th May, 1623. 



78 Smith College Studies in History 

they will goe for Holland and make salle of the goods when wee 
weare taken hee had 4 prices under hand be sides us hee hath 
taken sixtene saille small and great already not ells havinge 
to writte you at this time I leave you to the protection f fo e 
Almighty god I end. 

Before ever wee knewe what hee was Hee shotte at us and 
had stroke us if it had not bin for a cuntry man of the Master 
of our barcke, w ch was taken to days before us knew the barke 
and bag upon his knees hee should not hitt us all that Mr. tip- 
pett and I had a board the barke they tooke it away cleane 
savinge our bedinge and a fewe old clothes hee washt and 
trimd his shippe in Longe Hand in Erland and came ther hence 
not longe a gone hee hath 16 peces of Ordinance mounted & 
a great many in the hould." 

Holworthy's own deposition of June 23 18 repeats the state- 
ments made by these shipmasters, Fownes and Betterton. He 
adds : "Further he deposeth that the said Nutt on Saturday last 
past in the afternone being brought to whit hall to mak his ap- 
pearance, he did then volontaryly confes befor .... 

Lock the chief clarke belonging to S ir William Becher whoe 
tock his appearance, that he did take away all the aforsaid 
goods out of the aforsaid bark as above said. & that he did 
carry the same for Dartmouth where he did delever the pos- 
session therof to the Viz Admiral (eccepting about 5 or 6 bondles 
of the said Calfskins) Sir John Elyot." 

These letters as well as testimony from navy captains in 
later years show clearly that Nutt was one of the generals of 
his kind, daring, resourceful and able to keep under his con- 
trol a number of consorts with which he terrorized the coasts 
of England and Ireland. 

With complaints there came also to the authorities requests 
for the privilege of capturing Nutt. In the state papers is a 



18 H. C. A. Miscellaneous, Bundle 857; Deposition of Richard 
Holworthy. 



Sir John Eliot and John Nutt, the Pirate 79 

letter of Best written on June 3, 1623, 19 where he says, when 
telling of a farther attack of Nutt: "my great desire is to be 
employed one moneth to goe seeke him, w ch if it seeme good to 
you to procure from his Ma tie (under correction) I thinke you 
should doe god good service w th much Ho : to the Kinge, be- 
sides the gaine of many prayers to, and for yo r selves. If I 
may be employed to seeke Nutt, I shall not doubt soone to 
finde him if not departed the coaste before my cominge thither." 

We have no record of Best's endeavors but Eliot was cer- 
tainly laying his plans to capture Nutt. In the case of these 
gentlemen pirates who served two masters it was apparently 
the custom for King and Council to grant pardons for set pe- 
riods of time so that the strain of being "His Majesty's new 
creature" was frequently not permanent. Before Eliot's con- 
tact with Nutt the pirate had twice received official pardons 
granting immunity from arrest. 20 Nutt's latest pardon had ex- 
pired for nearly a month when the news in the letter already 
quoted and other complaints of the same sort came to the King 
and to Eliot. 

At the time when these complaints about Nutt came up to 
the Privy Council its chief secretaries were Sir George Calvert 
and Edward Conway. As Calvert was much occupied with 
private schemes of commerce and colonization most of the di- 
rection of judicial business fell to Conway. Buckingham, Lord 
High Admiral, Eliot's immediate chief and therefore his natural 
supporter, was out of England from February until September 
on his famous and foolish expedition with Prince Charles seek- 
ing the hand of the Infanta of Spain. Therefore when at last 
the council felt obliged to bestir itself over the situation on 
the western coasts it was Conway who wrote to Eliot. The 
letter, dated June 12th, 21 was a cautious one. After stating that 



19 S. P. Dora, James I, Vol. CXLV, 70, 10, 3d June, 1623 (Thomas 
Best was the hero of the fight with the Portugese off Surat in 1612 
and the Senior Naval Officer in the Downs when the fleet went to bring 
Charles back from Spain.) 

"Forster, Life of Sir John Eliot, I, 45. 

31 S. P. Dom., James I, CXLVI, No! 62. 



80 Smith College; Studies in History 

news had come to the council of Nutt's "many insolent and 
brutish Pyracies" and that "this Pyrat hath a wife and children 
near Exeter" Conway says that it is the commandment of the 
King "that you imploy your best dilligence, care and discretion 
to apprehend this Pyrat but it will be very important that the 
directions you give herein bee carried with as much secrecie 
as possibly can bee". He adds that notice is to be taken of 
such sea-faring men as come ashore "and stay made of any that 
are suspicious without naming Nutt." Conway mentions Eliot's 
"discretion, experience and knowledge of the country," but 
evidently has not yet realized the Vice-Admiral's initiative. 

This letter of Conway's apparently crossed one which Eliot 
sent to the Commissioners on June 10th 22 in which he writes 
"(Nutt) has upon the knowledge of a pardon which his Majestie 
has been pleased to grant him submitted himself and brought 
his ship into the harbour of Dartmouth." Eliot states: "The 
pardon is of the first of February, with extension for some 
Liberty for notice, which it seems he mett not until now. ther 
was three months onlie prefixt, since which time he has com- 
mitted many Depredations and spoils." Eliot asked for "di- 
rection or commands", showing real hesitation and indecision. 
Referring to the pardon granted Nutt he says : "the Majestie's 
intention : but as something too high I must fly to your Lord- 
ship's favors for construction which I most humbly crave, my 
Desires strive to avoid the Dangers of an ignorance & (as they 
would not contest his Majestie's pleasure, soe) to be held free 
of neglect in my place." The reader of this letter, knowing the 
outcome of this arrest and its consequences for Eliot, wonders 
if the Vice-Admiral himself was aware of the peculiar danger 
he was running in doing his duty as he saw it. This letter of 
June 10 referred to another — "since my last advertisement to 
your honors of Captain Nutt," a letter which apparently is not 
to be found. Conway makes no reference to it in his letter 
to Eliot of June 12th, quoted above, so it may not have reached 
him. 



S. P. Dam., James I, CXLVI, No. 52. 



Sir John Euot and John Nutt, the Pirate 81 

The vagueness of the letter of June 12th about details is 
supplemented by Eliot's more exact information to Conway on 
June 16th. 23 Having had no answer from the Council with 
instructions about the disposal of his "Pyrat" but having re- 
ceived Conway's letter of the 12th he proceeded to carry out a 
plan the initiative of which had been furnished by Nutt himself. 24 
In the early weeks of May when Nutt was hanging about Tor- 
bay he had sent word by "one Vittry" to Eliot's deputies, Ran- 
dall and Norber, to come aboard his man-of-war, that he might 
talk with them about Eliot's getting him a pardon. In lordly 
fashion he added "for if he could not have it heere he told 
them it was Pcured in holland" and in accordance with the 
usage of the pirate day "farther sayd that he would give two 
hundred and fifty pounds or three hundred pounds in reddy 
money for the pairing of his pardon." 25 

This was Eliot's opportunity. He determined to use a trick. 
He would give Nutt his pardon, but it was a pardon which had 
legally expired. Somehow a copy of such a pardon had fallen 
into Eliot's hands. A correspondence began between the Vice- 
Admiral and the pirate. 26 Nutt was suspicious of some ruse 
and refused to come on shore to meet Eliot. According to 
Eliot, 27 three or four weeks went by between the preliminary 
request of Nutt for a pardon and Eliot's finally getting him to 
accept it. In the meantime Nutt went on plundering, a fact to 
be taken into account in judging Eliot's ethics. At last, since 
Nutt would not go on shore to meet Eliot, Eliot went on board 
ship to meet Nutt. They chaffered together over a flask of wine 
in the pirate's own cabin. Nutt finally decided to accept the 
pardon and to pay Eliot as fine five hundred instead of three 
hundred pounds. This money, according to the usual custom, 
was to go partly to the Vice-Admiral, partly to the Lord High 



23 S. P. Dora., James I, CXLVI, No. 107. 

24 Examination of Eliot, 24 July. S. P. Dom, James I, Vol. CXLIX, 
No. 45, III. 

25 Examination of Norber, 9 August, 1623, H. C. A., Mis. Bundle, 857. 
2G Examination of Eliot. Eliot to Conway, S. P. Dom., June 16. 
27 Ibid. 



82 Smith College Studies in History 

Admiral. Already Nutt had given to the deputies of Eliot six 
packs of calf-skins — stolen from the Bristol merchant, Hol- 
worthy — for the Vice-Admiral and four pieces of baize for them- 
selves. 28 

In the middle of the conclave between Eliot and Nutt the 
captain of a Colchester ship came to the cabin door where 
they were drinking "and," as Eliot said, "petitioned (on his 
knees) for his ship and goods where it was not in the power 
of this examinste to do him any good nor Durst he earnestly 
importune at that tyme on his behalf ; for that at his firste 
comeinge on board when he understood that the shippe was 
Englishe, usinge some words special to persuade Nutt to quitt 
her in respecte the Kinge had now granted him a pardon, Hee 
the said Nutt presently fell into a passion and vowed not to 
accepte the pardon but upon condition to enjoy what hee had, 
neither doth hee beleve that there passed a word betweene him 
and the man that knelte as aforesaid." 29 About the injury of 
the unhappy Colchester captain Eliot said in his examination that 
he knew only by hearsay that the merchandise and men had 
been "beaten out" of the ship. 

Suave and reassuring as Eliot seems to have been in this 
interview, catering to the mood of the pirate, suspicion of some 
trick still hovered in the consciousness of Nutt, shown by his 
reluctance to come ashore. Finally, however, he brought his 
ship into the harbour of Dartmouth, was arrested, ship and 
crew, with the Colchester prize tacked on. 30 Spurwaie, the 
Mayor of Dartmouth, was an interested spectator of Eliot's 
capture of Nutt, and in the letter to the Privy Council already 
quoted 31 about Nutt, the adventurer, sliding into Nutt, the 
pirate, describes Nutt's blatant behavior on landing before ar- 



28 Ibid. Examination of Norber. 

39 Eliot's examination. Nutt at his trial denied that he took the 
Colchester ship until later. H. C. A., Oyer and Terminer Series, 1-49, 
July, 1623. 

30 Eliot to Commissioners, 10 June, 1623. S. P. Dom., James I, 
CXLVI, No. 52. 

31 Spurwaie to Privy Council, 12 June, 1623. S. P. Dom., CXLVI, 
No. 63. 



Sir John Eliot and John Nutt, the Pirate 83 

rest. He took away the clothes from the sailors on the Col- 
chester ship and he and his own crew paraded the quay, wearing 
the stolen garments! Spurwaie took upon himself the respon- 
sibility of putting back these outraged Colchesters on board 
their ship "in possession of there goodes." 32 Spurwaie in this 
same informing letter to the council tells how Eliot interrupted 
a neat plan of twelve "Fleminges who cam scatteringe by land 
(from Plymouth) to Torbaye of purpose to doe some mis- 
chief ;" seized a ship from Hamburg in the harbor and were 
departing to the west with her when Eliot, aided by the wind 
and forty men of Dartmouth, towed the ship into port and threw 
the men into prison." When Eliot himself wrote to the council 
about the capture he added that the corn in the cargo ought to 
be taken out and used for the poor as it was beginning to spoil 
while waiting for the owners of the ship to prove their right 
to her. 33 

In Eliot's own formal report to the council about these events 
and in the personal letter following to Conway 34 there is an un- 
certainty of tone, an over-obsequiousness, which implies a fear 
lest he has gone beyond his authority. He was also meticu- 
lously careful about further proceedings with Nutt and his men 
until he received orders from the council. He stated that the 
ship was safe without her sails and a guard on board. "But 
for the persons of the men until I know the extent of his Maties 
intentions in the pardon whereof I dare not be an interpreter, 
I thought not fitt to touch them." He wrote repeatedly for 
these orders and always passed on copies of his letters to Con- 
way. Ten days went by without Eliot's having any acknowledg- 
ment from the council. Conway answered on the 20th, how- 



32 There are two letters relating to the Colchester ship, a complaint 
to the Council by the Captain of the ship, (S. P. Dom., James I, CXLVII, 
No. 56) that Eliot stole sugar from them and a petition from the 
owners of the ship (S. P. Dom., James I, 57) that it he released from 
sequestration. From these two letters the date of the capture of the 
ship was evidently June 4, and the next day, June 5, Eliot interviewed 
Nutt on his ship. 

33 S. P. Dom., CXLVI, No. 65. 

34 S. P. Dom., CXLVI, No. 107. 



84 Smith College Studies in History 

ever, 35 telling Eliot to put crew and goods in custody and to 
send up Nutt himself to the council. The letter from the ad- 
miralty court finally came, repeating these same instructions. 
Eliot complied. The crew was put in prison, the "goods" stored 
awaiting the issue of the trial and Nutt sent to London. Con- 
way in his letter had added his praise to Eliot when the matter 
was reported at court, for which favor the Vice-Admiral re- 
turned profound thanks. 36 

But the actual issue of this original venture in arrest was 
much more involved and unpleasant for Eliot than a courtly 
salutation with Majesty. In brief, a month later found Nutt 
continuing his ravages of the Irish coast under a limitless and 
unconditional pardon while Eliot himself was in the Marshalsea 
prison in London. The surface causes of this turning of the 
tables were brought out during the trials of Nutt, and of Eliot 
and his deputies in July and early August before the admiralty 
court. The underlying fundamental cause leaked out later. 
The whole situation is characteristically illustrative of the gov- 
ernment complications in marine affairs during the early seven- 
teenth century. 

Eliot was under trial with Nutt before Sir Henry Marten 
because of two sets of accusations. The first group of accusa- 
tions came from Nutt and the associates whom he coerced into 
helping him malign Eliot. 37 They charged the Vice-Admiral 
with taking more goods from Nutt than were his just perqui- 
sites and with inciting Nutt to further piracy while waiting for 
his pardon to be confirmed. 

The second group of accusations came from the mayor of 



35 Mr. Marsden in his article, English Prize Jurisdiction and Prize 
Law in England, says that the Venetians complain of a curious law of 
the English in the 17th Century : "If you proceed against the person 
of a thief you may not proceed against his property" and vice versa. 
Eng. Hist. Review, XX, 243. 

30 Eliot to Conway, June 25. S. P. Dom., CXLVII, No. 58. 

37 There is evidence that Nutt tried with some success to bribe 
Norber and Randall, Eliot's deputies. Norber states in his deposition 
that he stayed aboard Nutt's ship for a time after Randall had gone 
back to Eliot and received from Nutt sugar and sweetmeats beside the 
regular perquisites sent to the Vice-Admiral. H. C. A., Mis., 857. 



Sir John Eliot and John Nutt, the Pirate 85 

Dartmouth and the owners of Nutt's prize, the Colchester ship, 
with its wools and sugar which Eliot had considered a side 
issue to be kept in abeyance until Nutt himself had been dis- 
posed of. They attacked Eliot for exceeding his authority. 
The owners of this ship had proved their claim to her and pe- 
titioned the council for her restoration. 38 They coupled this 
petition with a false statement about Eliot's boarding their ship 
and taking sugar from her. 39 Then Spurwaie, the same mayor of 
Dartmouth who had praised Eliot to the council for his capture 
of Nutt and the Hamburg ship, together with his associates in 
the local admiralty court, wrote to the council that Eliot refused 
to give up the ship even though the council had so ordered. 40 
That Eliot had taken any goods from this prize was easily dis- 
proved at the trial both by his deputies and by other witnesses. 41 
About the deliverance of the ship to its owners, there was a 
collision in authority. The order for restoration should have 
been sent to Eliot instead of to his inferior officers in the pro- 
vince. Moreover, the order sent to the mayor to restore the 
ship to her owners directly contradicted the order sent Eliot 
from the council through Conway to hold on to it. However 
influential in causing the arrest of Eliot, this accusation of the 
mayor played little part in the trial, and uncertainty in regard 
to its truth caused it soon to be dropped. 

The trial of Eliot took place before the judge of the high 
court of admiralty, Sir Henry Marten, in London, during July. 
Randall, Eliot's chief deputy, gave his deposition at this court. 
Norber, technically Eliot's marshal, was examined in August 
before Kiste, judge of the admiralty court of Devon. The ab- 
surdity of the other group of accusations that Eliot took goods 
from Nutt for his own use and that he incited Nutt to further 
piracy was brought out by all the examinates. Even Nutt 



38 S. P. Dom, James I, CXLVII, No. 57— (no date given). 
33 S. P. Dom., James I. CXLVII, No. 56. 
* S. P. Dom, CXLVIII, No. 27, July 4th. 

41 H. C. A, I, 49. Examinations of Randall and Norber. "The true 
facts are well known about Dartmouth." Eliot's examination. 



86 Smith College Studies in History 

himself denied that Eliot took any goods for personal use. 42 
Both Norber and Randal declared it impossible that Eliot should 
have done either of the things of which he was accused. Norber 
asserted emphatically that the only money, jewels and goods he 
received from Nutt before the final capture of his ship were 
the six packs of calve skins and the four pieces of baize sent 
to Eliot when the deputies went on board to treat. Norber 
scrupulously adds that "at his first being abord the sd Nutt 
after his coming into Torbay he had from the sd Nutt a little 
loafe of sugar contayning about 2 pounds & halfe, & one little 
barrell of suckett (a conserve) contayning about 2 pounds but 
more or other goods this exam* never received neither did know 
that any other did receive any of the sd Nutt only excepting one 
loafe of sugar wch the sd Nutt sent one Henry Lumbly's wife 
of Dartmouth." 43 

Eliot, of course, in his examination denied both accusations 
and as we have seen, was exactly supported by Norber's later 
examination. In regard to seizing the goods Eliot said that he 
sent word to Mr. Kiste about those six packs of calve-skins taken 
"for the Lord Admiral's use" "and twas publicly known in 
Dartmouth." As for encouraging Nutt to further piracies, 
Eliot tells how he urged Nutt's brother-in-law to dissuade the 
pirate "from those spoils and rapines w ch he every day co- 
mitted upon the coast, w ch otherwise would make him incapable 
of any hope or favour." About urging Nutt to attack some 
Spanish ships Eliot said the facts were that "w th one Mr. Popes 
and one Mr. Doves Masters of a Fleete of shippes at Dart- 
mouth, of Twenty or 21 saile he went to surprize the said Nutt 



42 H. C. O. and T. Series, 1/49. Examination of Nutt, 9 July, 1623. 

43 H. C. Mis. Bundle, 857. Examination of Norber, 9 August, 1623. 
Forster (Life of Eliot, I, 60-67) in his account of the trial has evidently 
not seen Norber's deposition, while parts of Nutt's and of Randall's 
depositions referred to by Forster are not to be found. The examina- 
tions of Nutt and of Randall, identical in the Admiralty records and 
in the state papers (S. P. Dom., James I, CXIX, No. 45. I and II) are 
apparently now incomplete. 



Sir John Eliot and John Nutt, the Pirate 87 

in Torbay." 44 This plan was frustrated only because Nutt was 
chased away by a Dutch man-of-war. 

The evidence would seem to make the result of the trial a 
foregone conclusion. But though the judge, Marten, sent up 
the evidence of the witnesses first to the council, then to Con- 
way, 45 in a summarized form ready for such conclusion, he re- 
fused to conclude. That is, he preserved an almost wholly non- 
committal attitude. In his letter to Conway, he hedged by say- 
ing that he had rather give his observations before the king, 
personally, and the whole Council, not only about Eliot, "but 
about all others in the like place wthin the Kingdom." This 
acknowledgement he finally made : "I must doe Sr John Eliot 
this right to say, this bringing in of Nutt was factum bonum, 
yf not bene : For thoughe Nutt did sollicite for his pardon and 
offered thereuppon to come in, yet hee ceased not to pillage 
and comitte outrage uppon all the vessells hee coulde meete and 
master untill the day wherein S r John Elliott did gull him wth 
the shewe of an exemplification of a pardon out of date." 46 

As the substance of his report Marten urged the release of 
Eliot until the Lord High Admiral came back from Spain, "yf hee 
bee cautelously bayled" ; but he urged this release not on the 
ground of justice to Eliot but only on the ground of the neglect 
of the King's business under the charge of the Vice- Admiral 
if the Vice- Admiral and his deputies were shut away from their 
responsibilities. He detailed elaborately the various sides of 
this neglect : Ships and goods may perish or vanish ; the time 
of year is one of greatest business ; Nutt's 23 men "doe soe 
pester the Prison that they feare an infection" and the Vice- 
Admiral ought to be there to get them out, judge them, and 
hang them. This letter of Marten to Conway is shadowed by 
a weak subservience and evident fear of offence. Beside the 
shuffling about a definite decision in the case, he said he had 
sent a copy of this letter to Calvert ; and he filled a long para- 



14 S. P. Dora., James I, CXLIX, No. 45, III. Examination of Eliot. 
24 July 1623. 

43 Ibid., 25 July, 1623. 
." Ibid., CL, 23, 4 August, 1623. 



88 Smith College Studies in History 

graph with thankfulness that after all the King had not with- 
held the sign of his favor and had given him his annual buck ! 

Marten's advice was not heeded. Eliot remained in prison, 
baffled in his attempt to get a meeting of the council to hear 
his case. Neither in Marten's reports nor in other evidence is 
the real reason of this injustice brought out. A very spirited 
letter from Eliot to Conway written on the same day that Mar- 
ten wrote to Conway finally gives the real clue. After defending 
his taking the £500 for the pardon — and the six packs of calve- 
skins as the customary concessions to the admiralty — and after 
telling of the return of the latter to the Bristol owners, Eliot 
says: "the originall cause of the distast conceivd against me is 
(if I fail not much) my diligence in getting that exemplification. 
It seems the pardon was at first procured by M r . Secretarie 
Calvert who may suppose him self therein crost by me ; but my 
ignorance may be my apologie, for w ch I have alreadie protested 
both to M r Secretarie in privat, & before the Lords at Counsell 
table, wher that pointe was urg'd, whether I knew not that the 
pardon had been procur'd by M r Secretarie, w ch I trulie excused, 
& findeinge itt out of date, was soe farr from seeking that, as 
I imagined not ther had a thought hid under itt." 47 Eliot's sur- 
mise was strengthened by a letter from Calvert to Conway on 
August 11th, asking for the release of Nutt from prison. "The 
poore man is able to doe the king service if he were imployed, 
and I doe assure myselfe he doth soe detest his former course 
of life as he will never enter into it againe. I have been at 
charge allready of one Pardon, and am contented to be at as 
much more for this, if his Ma*y will be gratiously pleased to 
graunt it. Wherein I have no other end but to be grate full to 
a poore man that hath been ready to doe mee and my associate 
courtesies in a Plantacon w ch we have begunne in Newfound- 
land, by defending us from others w ch perhapps in the infancy 
of that work might have done us wronge." 48 

The case was then one of two opposite view-points. To 



47 S. P. Dom., James I, CL, No. 23, 4 August, 1623. 

48 S. P. Dom., James I, CL, No. 82. 



Sir John Eliot and John Nutt, the Pirate 89 

Eliot Nutt was "a malicious assassin," as to Fownes "a merci- 
less Vellon." To Calvert he was a daring and useful pioneer 
in new enterprises. The temperament and ideals of Eliot were 
in all things opposed to the temperament and ideals of Calvert. 
Calvert was intimate with Gondomar, the astute Spanish am- 
bassador. He had already aroused public indignation by his 
partiality toward Spain and by exporting to Spain a hundred 
guns, manufactured in England, at a time when parliament had 
declared against exporting any munitions. 49 Eliot's sentiments 
toward Gondomar and Spain were most hostile. 

Calvert was keenly interested in commerce and colonization. 
He was a shrewd man, fathering schemes dealing not only with 
guns bound for Spain but with a profitable exportation of raw 
silk from France, with fisheries and a plantation in Newfound- 
land and presently a plantation in Maryland. Eliot was little 
interested in such schemes and unable to appreciate the value 
of the new plantations. 

Calvert was on the point of declaring himself a Roman 
Catholic and was trying to get the penal laws for Catholics 
lightened. 50 Eliot, on the other hand, was one of the first in 
the ensuing parliament to demand greater insistence on the en- 
forcement of the recusancy laws against Catholics. It is easy 
to understand that to Calvert the assistance of Nutt in a new 
and exciting enterprise across the sea, promising value to king 
and government, far outweighed the harm he had done by petty 
depredations along the Irish and English coasts. The secretary 
was irritated especially at Eliot's trick in taking Nutt, because, 
as has been mentioned he, Calvert, had obtained that very par- 
don, asking for the release of "that unlucky fellow." Calvert 
was aggrieved that Nutt was not warned of the time of the ex- 
piration of his pardon, since another pardon could have been 
at once obtained. In fact the king did grant the pirate one as 
soon as Calvert asked for it about June 1st. Since, therefore, 



49 Wilhelm, Life of Calvert, Baltimore, 1884, p. 121. 
50 Father Hughes, History of the Society of Jesus in North 
America, I, 178. 



90 Smith College; Studies in History 

all the goods which Nutt took in the time between these par- 
dons have been restored, plead Calvert, why not let him be 
free? Marten said all restoration had been made "though hee 
might have made his certificate fuller if it had pleased him 
and w th as good as a conscience also." 51 One now easily under- 
stands why poor, cringing Marten had sent his letter about the 
trial to Calvert as well as to Conway and why his judgment 
was evasive and inconclusive. Also one sees why that meeting 
of a full council to which Eliot wished his case appealed did 
not take place, remembering that Calvert at this time was far 
more influential with the king than was Conway. 

As a result of Calvert's patronage, the outcome for Nutt 
was a speedy release. There is no record in the admiralty 
court papers of any indictment of him, although he was kept 
under the surveillance of commissioners of the court until his 
pardon was formally signed by the king a month later. 52 

As soon as Nutt was released both Conway and Marten 
made fresh efforts on Eliot's behalf. They were pricked on by 
a letter from Aylesbury, the secretary of Buckingham, to whom 
Conway largely owed his office. 53 Eliot had naturally turned 
to Aylesbury since the Lord High Admiral was out of the 
country and reminded him that it was rather a difficult matter 
to fulfil his responsibilities as Vice-Admiral of Devon when he 
was shut up in prison in London and that the affairs of the 
Lord High Admiral "may suffer through some negligence or 
miscarriage of businesses there." But Calvert was too strong 
for them and Eliot was not set free until sometime in Septem- 
ber. Marten wrote Conway on the failure of their attempts a 
characteristic letter in which he said : "I am glad I did forbear 
to deliver my own opinion on the state of his cause least phaps it 
might have differed somewhat. Well ! I pray God this turn 
not most to the disadvantage of my Lord Admirall!" 54 



51 Calvert to Conway, August 11, 1623. 

62 S. P. Dom., James I, CLI, No. 73, also see Vol. 150, No. 90, Conway 
to Calvert, Aug. 13th, 1623. 

63 Ibid., CXLIX, No. 78, 28 July, 1623. 
M Ibid., CL, No. 76, Aug. 10th, 1623. 



Sir John Eliot and John Nutt, the; Pirate; 91 

Eliot's own letters to Conway emphasized the same point 
made by Aylesbury and Marten. That is, they emphasized 
utility rather than justice. He pleaded the need of his release 
to attend to the business of the admiralty, "as for the service 
of my L,o. Admirall, to whom I know y u are a frinde. his af- 
faires in the countrie, w ch are committed unto my trust, by rea- 
son of my suddaine comminge thenc, stand uncertintie, & great 
charge of ships & goods, wherein my Lo. may sustaine preju- 
dice by my absenc, besides the Loss of all new occurrents, w ch 
I should attend." 55 

But when Conway 56 evidently reproached him a bit beyond 
patience he flashes out his innocence with much spirit. "Beinge 
conscious of myne owne freenes in all that can be alleadg'd, I 
dare not wave my justification, w ch were to charge it w th the im- 
plicite confession of a guilt, wherein I humble praie to be ex- 
cused." He declared the taking of the goods and the £500 from 
Nutt "the proper duties of my place." Regardless of Calvert's 
patronage he vigorously inveighed against Nutt, "& cannot soe- 
much yet undervalue my integritie, to doubt that the words of 
a malicious assassine now standinge for his life, shall have repu- 
tation equall to the credit of a gentleman. In him I wonder not 
to finde that baseness, havinge in all things profest himself a 
villaine, & stain'd his countrie with barbarismes unheard of, 
seinge himself train'd in by me upon the color of a pardon w ch 
was out of date, & of noe force, & sent up hither w th a true re- 
lation of his facts that he might be hang'd, malice w th out an in- 
stigator, were enough to putt him on this revenge." 57 

The righteous indignation of this letter was appeased by 
Conway, because the next letter of August 18th, 58 was warmly 
grateful. It was also wistfully discouraged. "I confess myself 
an unap subiect for anie favor, having it in my Fortunes cast 



"Ibid., CXL-IX, No. 89, Eliot to Conway, 29 July, 1623. 

58 In a letter of August 2, of which there is only this note to be 
found : "Sr John Eliott. Givinge him an accompt what is donn in his 
business." S. P. Dom., James I, CCXIV, Conway's Entrybook, p. 69. 

67 S. P. Dom., James I, CL, No. 23, Eliot to Conway, 4 Aug., 1623. 

58 S. P. Dom., James I, CLI, No. 9. 



92 Smith College Studies in History 

to be unhappie, from whence aher reflect soe manie difficulties 
on my best hopes, that my desires are become troublesome." 
There had been a meeting of the council at last but only to 
baffle Eliot. "Opon y r Honors direction I prepar'd my self to 
instance the Lords for my discharge, & had an opportunitie of 
their meeting, w ch gave me hope; but therein was prevented by 
some other business intervenient, w ch suff'red me not either to 
be called, or heard. In these bad successes I must now sub- 
mitt to a long expectation, shadowing my innocenc under the pro- 
tection of your iudgment." He became thus stoically resigned, 
while humanly comforted by faith in Conway's understanding. 

Eliot's resignation was far from apathy, however, especially 
as regards his responsibilities. In his letter to Conway of August 
18th he referred to having been a disturbance "in the thought 
of those businesses which concerned me." That he kept a tight 
hand on his deputies is shown by a letter from Nutt to the coun- 
cil toward the middle of September, complaining that Eliot 
refused to obey their order of the 18th to pay 100 pounds to 
Nutt or to let his deputies pay it unless he, Eliot, were allowed 
"to be free to come down to the country." 59 This sturdy alle- 
giance of Eliot's subordinates was possibly stimulated by a visit 
of Aylesbury to Devon. For Coke wrote to Buckingham on 
October 17th that he won over Nutt in regard to the goods be- 
cause in spite of the note to the admiralty on August 10th, that 
Nutt was to have all his ships and goods except those taken 
after May 10th, "Captain Nutt has been granted a pardon yet 
his goods have been forfeited to the Lord Admiral." 60 

Records of Nutt's farther career are not found until nine 
years later in 1631 and 1632. But he evidently pursued suc- 
cessfully the same merry ways, for Captain Plumleigh writes 
to Coke on June 14, 1631 : "The pirates Nutt and Downs are 
upon the western coast and have lately been so bold as to put 
in Cawsand Bay and questionless the country people relieve 



59 Cal. S. P. Dam., James I, CLII, No. 89. 

00 Coke to Buckingham, Oct. 17, 1623. Coke Papers, Hist. Mss. Com., 
Rep. 12, App. I, 150. 



James I and the Parliament of 1621 93 

them for gain with whatsoever they want." 61 Again in 1632 
Richard Boyle, the Earl of Cork, wrote to Coke from Dublin, 
"Captain Nutt, an arch pirate has done much harm on the 
western coasts. We have made the best preparation we can 
to withstand any sudden attack." 62 

Plumleigh again wrote to Coke from Watteford that in an 
encounter with Nutt his consort was foundered. He put to sea 
with his ship half mended leaving behind nine of his men "of 
whom I have two on board of whom I have learned these par- 
ticulars. Nutt has two Turks with him and one other consort. 
The Irish are much terrified thinking a fleet to be his which 
turns out to be honest Flemings." 63 

Again on November 19 Captain Simon Digby wrote to 
Coke from on board ship in the Downs : "It is reported that 
Captain Nutt is taken at the Groine." 64 The report was false 
or the taking, as usual, temporary. For our last news of Eliot's 
tormentor and Calvert's friend is yet one year farther on in 
connection with another high officer of the king. Wentworth 
was in 1633 the newly appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. 
He had evidently been criticised for his delay in sailing to take 
his new command. The reason for this delay is given in two 
letters to Coke. On June 3 he wrote: "It is madness for me 
to cross sea without Plumleigh to carry me and my country over 
in safety. The Pyrate hath already light of two hundred pounds 
worth of my goods." 65 

On June 9 he sent the following vigorous aspersion to the 
lord treasurer : "The Pyrate that lyes before Dublin, took on 
the 20th of the last month a Bark of Liverpool, with Goods 
worth 4000 pounds, and amongst them as much linen as cost 
me 500 pounds. * * * By my faith this is but a cold welcome they 
bring me withal to that coast * * The same Villain set upon a 
Dutchman on the 19th of the same month and boarded her but 



"Coke Papers, 432. 
"Ibid., 459. 

63 Coke Papers, Oct. 15, 1632, p. 477 . 

64 Coke Papers, Oct. 15, 1632, p. 482. 

65 Letters and Papers of Strafford. Wm. Knowler, London, 1739, p. 87. 



94 Smith College Studies in History 

they defended themselves so well, as having blown up four of 
his men, the Pirate gave them over; but in revenge he light of 
anothr Hollander, on the one and twentieth Day, and pursued 
her so near as enforced them to run on ground, to save them- 
selves within sight of Dublin. The Pirate for all that, gave 
them not over but in despite of all the help the Lords Justices 
could give them from the Land, (by sending men to beat him 
off the shore) entered and riffled the Bark, taking out what 
they pleased, setting her on Fire, so that there she burnt two 
Days together, till it came to the Water, and was then all in 
a Flame, when my cousin Radcliffe writ me that letter to be 
seen forth in his Majesty's Castle. She was about two hundred 
pounds in content. 

"The loss and misery of this is not so great as the scorn that 
such "a picking Villain as this, should dare do these insolences in 
the Face of that State, and to pass away without Controul. Yet 
I beseech your Lordship give me Leave to tell you once for all, 
that if there be not a more timely and constant Course held 
hereafter in setting forth the Ships by guarding the Coast 
there, by the Admiralty here, the money paid for that purpose 
thence is absolutely cast away; the Farmers of the Customs will 
be directly undone; and the whole Kingdom grow beggarly and 
barbarous, for want of Trade and Commerce." 66 

What Wentworth did to secure the "more timely and constant 
Course" by clearing the sea of pirates; what he did to prevent 
"the Kingdom from growing beggarly and barbarous" is a mat- 
ter of later history. That Wentworth hanged Nutt is a matter 
of surmise ; it is not yet a matter of knowledge. For with 
these letters our record of facts about Nutt ceases. 



Knowler, Strafford Papers, 90. 



James I and the; Parliament of 1621 95 

II 
JAMES I AND THE PARLIAMENT OF 1621 

Eliot's name does not appear in the list of the members of the 
parliament of 1621. As has been shown in the previous chapter 
he was absorbed in the affairs of his Vice-Admiralty down in his 
particular corner of England. But no narrative of his times 
could omit national affairs of such importance and interest as 
took place in this parliament. It is a parliament of which there 
is especially vivid record from a literary point of view, and one 
which marks out clearly the growing distrust in which its mem- 
bers held the king and his advisors. 

The parliament met with a background of grievances, do- 
mestic and foreign, which had accumulated during the seven 
years since the dissolution of the "Addled Parliament" of 1614. 
The domestic grievances of taxation and religion had grown in 
number and in power to irritate. James still collected taxes in 
ways exasperating to his subjects. His methods for raising 
money without parliament included impositions, monopolies, 
benevolences of the old Tudor type, and loans from merchants. 
He also got money from offices and titles "freely sold for a good- 
ly sum" and he collected interest on money lent the Flemish 
towns by Queen Elizabeth. 1 James said in his opening speech 
of the first session, "I will not make every day a Christmas," 2 
implying that he was retaining his habit of lavishing money 
on court and favorites to an extent which angered the people. 

As far as religion was concerned, parliament felt that in- 
creased favor had been shown to Roman Catholics. Parliament 
knew that the recusancy laws had been particularly neglected 
when it came to dealing with foreign priests. It was said that 
priests could go in and out of their prisons as if the prisons were 
inns by paying a trifling sum to their jailors. Marked leniency 
was being shown toward English Roman Catholics — more so 
than at any time since the Gun Powder Plot. Phillips said, 



1 Calendar Venetian State Papers, XVI, Introduction, p. xl. 

2 Proceedings and Debates, Oxford, 1766, I, 10. 



96 Smith College; Studies in History 

"Papists dare now at Tables to maintain transubstantiation and 
they are grown so powerful that their judges dare not receive 
Indictments against them." Parrett declared, "There was found 
within these two months a Print where Popish books were 
printed in the Prison where also they have daily and duly Mass 
said, to which there resort great store of Papists." 3 The nat- 
ural tolerance of James was partly responsible for his laxity in 
regard to the enforcement of the recusancy laws; but popular 
opinion put his laxity down entirely to the influence of the Span- 
ish Ambassador. 

Gondomar, or Sarmiento, the Spanish Ambassador, a most 
astute and tactful person, had gained and maintained a great 
ascendancy over the king of England ; an ascendancy hateful to 
the court and people. Those keen and dispassionate observers, 
the envoys from Venice, in their dispatches home give many 
pictures of the notorious influence of Gondomar. One of them, 
Lando, wrote on February 5, 1621, "The crown and sceptre of 
these realms seem to be in the hands of the Spanish Ambassador 
absolutely. He is engaged in uprooting all the plants which 
do not bend to his breath." 4 Again Lando in speaking of a 
scene in the council room remarked : "In the same day the king 
gave audience to the Spanish Ambassador and whereas in the 
morning he spent two hours with his council he now spent three 
with the Ambassador." 5 

As early as 1614 Gondomar had begun to manage James, not 
only gaining privileges for the Roman Catholics, but helping to 
widen the breach between the king and his parliament. James 
had grumbled to the Spaniard about the parliament, just then 
dismissed : "The House of Commons is a body without a head. 
The members give their opinion in a disorderly manner. I am 
surprised that my ancestors should have ever allowed such an 
institution to come into existence." Gondomar smoothed down 
the disgruntled king by reminding him that he could dismiss 



3 Proceedings and Debates, 1766, I, 24 and 25. 
4 Cal. S. P., Ven., XVI, No. 725. 
5 Cal. S. P., Ven., XVL, No. 679. 



James I and the Parliament of 1621 97 

parliament when he pleased. "Yes," said James, brightening up, 
"and what is more, without my consent, the words and acts of 
the Parliament are altogether useless." 6 D'Ewes said : "He 
[Gondomar] labored to breed distaste and jealousies in the king 
under the false and adulterate name of Puritans so to prevent 
future parliaments." 7 Lando gave as a reason for Gondomar's 
influence that "although a Spaniard he tries to conform in all 
things to the taste and inclinations of the king without stiffness." 8 
The English writer Wilson brings out the same reason when he 
tells of Gondomar's fooling with James. "He spoke Latin in 
merry fits to please the king, saying, he, the king, spoke Latin 
like a pedant, I like a gentleman." 9 

The feeling in parliament about this "Hispanophile" 10 influ- 
ence together with its growing resentment is indicated by its ac- 
tion in the Floyd affair. Floyd was an old Catholic gentleman 
who was reported to have said in regard to the Bohemian revo- 
lution of 1618 that he heard that Prague had been taken and that 
Goodman Palsgrave and Good Wife Palsgrave had taken to 
their heels and gone away. The rumor followed directly on the 
news of the whipping to death of an apprentice because of some 
trifling offence towards Gondomar. The House of Commons 
pitched on Floyd with primitive rage. Sir Robert Philips said 
he should be carried from Westminster face to the horse tail ; 
Sir George Moore, that they should whip him back to the Fleet ; 
Seymour, that he should go to the cart's tail with as many lashes 
as he wore beads ; Basil Darcy and Cecil declared that his tongue 
should be bored through ; Horsen, he should have his tongue cut 
out; Jephson, that he should be whipped as far again as the 
apprentice was whipped ; and Goring said that his nose, ears, 
and tongue should be cut off and that he should be made to 
swallow a bead each stage. Sir Edwin Sandys and Goodwin 



•Gardiner: History of England, 1603-42, II, 251. 

7 Autobiography, 158. 

8 Cal. S. P., Ven., XVI, 218. 

9 Kennett's "Compleat History of England". T. Wilson, I, 626. 

10 "We grow more Hispanophile every day" quoted from a lead- 
ing courtier. Cal. S. P., Ven., XVI, No. 758. 



98 Smith College; Studies in History 

were the only men in the House raising voice against this welter 
of brutality. They said it was not wise to punish him so severely 
for his religion "lest he be canonized" and also that he could 
not be whipped because he was a gentleman. 11 The mob rage 
gradually died down; but not before the House of Lords had 
shared it. The sentence finally executed was the Lords' and 
was as follows : "That he should be degraded from his Gen- 
tility, ride on Monday next from the Fleet to Cheapside on 
Horseback without a saddle, with his face to the Horse's Tail, 
and the Tail in his Hand, and there to stand Two Hours in 
the Pillory and then to be there branded in the Forehead with 
the letter K : — That on Friday following he shall ride from the 
'foresaid Place in the same Manner to Westminster, and there 
spend Two Hours more in the Pillory with Words in a Paper 
in his Hat showing his offense : — To pay for a Fine to the king 
the Sum of Five Thousand Pounds, and to be prisoner in New- 
gate during his Life." 12 

This incident brings us to the new grievance of foreign af- 
fairs. Goodman Palsgrave and Good Wife Palsgrave were of 
course Frederick and Elizabeth, the son-in-law and daughter of 
James. Frederick was the Protestant ruler of the Palatinate, 
who had accepted the throne of Bohemia and been driven from 
it. We may be pardoned for reviewing the well known back- 
ground of the international situation in 1621. The Thirty Years' 
War had broken out in Germany, a war both civil and religious. 
Since the agreement at the Peace of Augsburg, in 1555, each 
state had followed the religion of its ruler. In many states 
the religion of the ruler was that of the majority of his sub- 
jects. The western and northern states were mostly Protestants, 
the southern and eastern states Roman Catholic. There was one 
exception to this rule. Bohemia, largely Protestant, was under 
the control of Austria, and compelled to put up with the Catholic 
ruler. But under the Emperor Rudolph, this rule was not heavy. 
Rudolph, who died in 1609, had made many concessions to the 



Journals of the House of Commons, I, 599-602. 
Proceedings and Debates, 1766, II, 107. 



James I and the Parliament oe 1621 99 

Protestants by royal charter and the easy-going Emperor Mathias 
had confirmed them. When he died in 1612, however, quite a 
different type of ruler, Ferdinand, King of Austria, was candi- 
date for Emperor. He was under Jesuit influence and a strong 
Catholic of the house of Hapsburg. All Protestant Europe was 
anxious and other candidates less bigoted were suggested. 

In spite of scheming, Ferdinand gained the election, but Bo- 
hemia would have none of him. In 1618, she revolted, threw 
the Regents of the Emperor out of the window and invited 
Frederick, the head of the Union of Protestant States, to be- 
come its ruler. Frederick, as has already been said, had mar- 
ried Elizabeth, daughter of James. In accepting the throne he 
went against both the feeling and the judgment of his father-in- 
law. In James' speech to parliament, December 11, 1621, he 
said : "This miserable war which has set all Christendom on 
fire was caused by our son-in-law, his hasty and harsh resolution 
following evil counsel to take to himself the crown of Bohemia." 

Von Male, the Flemish agent in England, had agreed with 
James and had made the prophecy which gave Frederick the 
nickname of the "Winter King." "He will last one season only. 
When spring comes, he will be driven out with a single blow and 
be deprived of his Crown by a mere puff from the House of 
Austria." Gondomar also remarked that the Bohemian Crown 
would be one of thorns rather than one of jewels. 13 These 
prophecies were fulfilled and the judgment of the old king was 
confirmed. It is interesting to note that in spite of James' in- 
sight and condemnation of Frederick's act, his vanity led him 
to call a toast to the new Bohemian King in the presence of 
others "for which his majesty afterwards enjoined profound 
secrecy." 14 Later in November, another Venetian envoy, Ma- 
rioni, says "He will not help the Palatinate if the causes do not 
appear to him entirely reasonable ... as his son-in-law 
embarked on this adventure without his consent." 15 



Cal. S. P., Ven., XVI, No. 133. 
Gal. S. P., Ven., XVI, No. 287. 
Cal. S. P., Ven., XVI, No. 83. 



100 Smith College; Studies in History 

The counsel was indeed evil. Frederick could not get on 
with the Bohemians nor did he have the force to become the 
center of Protestantism as his allies had hoped. In a short time 
Ferdinand, now made emperor, with the aid of Maximilian of 
Bavaria and his general, Tilly, at the Battle of White Hill, 
October 29, 1620, got the victory for the imperial troops. The 
Spaniards, coming to the aid of the Austrians, their kindred in 
blood and religion, with Spinola as leader, invaded the Lower 
Palatinate. 

The news of this invasion set England on fire. Ignorant of 
European politics, careless of Frederick's unwisdom, the Eng- 
lish people knew only that the king's family and Protestantism 
were attacked, that the danger came from Spain, and that Eng- 
land's duty and delight was to go to war with Spain in behalf 
of Frederick, in defense of Protestantism. James utterly refused 
to act. He would neither console Frederick nor yield to the peo- 
ple's demand for war. He was hammered at on all sides by en- 
voys from Bohemia backed up by Donato, the Venetian am- 
bassador, and by the leaders of Dutch Protestantism. Donato, 
also, speaks of the English Archbishop Abbott, "hating to see 
the king in such a lethargy, his most profound sleep." 16 Lando 
says of James at this crisis "His nature is such that in his heart 
great strokes sometimes please him when they turn out well 
but he has no inclination to advise or handle them; and if they 
turn out ill, he wishes to be free from any imputation of having 
fomented or advised them." 17 

It is to be questioned whether James was as lethargic, or as 
passive, as he seemed. He did have a positive policy which was 
that of peace through diplomacy. He thought that Spain in her 
invasion of the Palatinate was only making a feint and saw no 
gain in joining against Austria for a prolonged European war. 
In large-minded tolerance, in sense of proportion, the king of 
England was ahead of his time. He had the modern point of 
view about the subordinate place of religion in political issues, 



Cal. S. P., Ven., XV, No. 734. 
Cal. S. P., Ven., XV, No. 747. 



James I and the Parliament of 1621 101 

but his contemporaries in England were not modern. He knew 
that the Catholic lion and the Protestant lamb would some day- 
lie down together, but he knew it too soon. His people hated 
Catholicism. He thought that arbitration was better than war. 
He was right when he shrewdly observed "that a number of sub- 
jects are so pampered with peace that they are desirous of 
change, they know not what." 18 But the time had not yet come 
for arbitration. The people knew that no change was so wel- 
come, so desirable as war with Spain in behalf of Protestantism. 
This irreconcilable gap between the views and plans of the king 
in foreign affairs and the views of the people was to grow ; but 
James refused to call parliament until absolutely forced to do so 
by lack of money. He did send a tiny band of Englishmen under 
Sir Horace Vere as a stop-gap. Meanwhile in pursuance of his 
own policy he sent Digby on a mission to the emperor who tried 
to push on negotiations with Spain. Frederick himself had hired 
Mansfeld, a soldier adventurer, to help him out and James too, 
without consulting parliament, had given Frederick a little 
money. "Thus was the king estranged in the ways he had chosen 
for it was not possible for him at once to please his people and 
to satisfy his foreign interests." 19 

His mercenaries were plunderers of the first water and harm- 
ed more than helped Frederick's interests. Frederick himself was 
most unwise in his policies. Even when Spain caused a truce, 
Frederick broke it by an attack on Catholic lands. However 
foolish the war seemed to James, he failed to grasp the fact that 
it was fundamentally a religious war and as yet religious wars 
must be waged and no other type of war could matter so much. 
The flame once started must inevitably spread. The English peo- 
ple realized from the beginning that it was a religious war. Be- 
fore parliament met, national feeling was so bitter in regard to the 
king's hesitancy that there was fear of a popular rebellion. 20 
When parliament was finally called, the failure of Frederick 



"Rushworth, 48. 
"Rushworth, 37. 
2(1 Cal. S. P., Ven., XVI, No. 504. 



102 Smith College; Studies in History 

seemed certain and the nation was begging for unreserved na- 
tional aid to be sent to him. 

It was under such circumstances that the parliament of 1621 
met. It sat in two sessions, the first from January 31 to June 4; 
the second from November 30 to December 18. The parliament 
was one marked by some of James' most characteristic speeches, 
characteristic both of his weakness and wisdom, showing vividly 
his nearsighted policy in regard to the events of his day, revealing 
also his farsightedness in ideals yet impossible to fulfill. This 
parliament also marked a growing irritation and independence 
against the king's attitude of "Faither and Kindly Maister," 21 
an attitude which treated the members of parliament like children. 
The House of Commons especially made evident a strong dis- 
position to emphasize in the first session grievances in taxation 
and religion before giving any supplies and in the second 
session the right to talk about foreign affairs, culminating in 
the declaration of these rights in the famous Protestation of 
December 18. 

The councillors and chief officers of the king were Bucking- 
ham, who had succeeded Somerset as new favorite holding the 
office of Lord High Admiral; Calvert and Conway, Secretaries 
of State ; Williams, Keeper of the Seal ; Greville, afterwards 
Lord Brooke, Chancellor of the Exchequer ; Montague, Secre- 
tary; Bacon, Lord High Chancellor. The leaders in the House 
were Sir Robert Phillips, Sir Dudley Digges, Francis Seymour, 
and James Perrot. 

The first session began with the speech of the king in which, 
as has been said, he practically acknowledged his court extrava- 
gances and promised reform. 22 The king also implied that he 
knew he did not do well in the earlier parliaments. He said he 
was a novice in the first parliament but was led by "Undertakers" 
in the second. 



21 Basilikon Doron, Morley Miscellany, 110, 111. 

22 The report of this speech of James by the Old Parliamentary 
History seems more trustworthy than Rushworth's. It is character- 
istically abstract and philosophical. Rushworth's report is too concise 
and concrete to be natural for James. 



James I and the; Parliament of 1621 103 

To Calvert's request for supply, Sir George Moore replied 
that grievances and supplies might go together and the House 
backed him up by attacking the monoplies, first in the person of 
Sir Giles Mompesson, then in general. 23 On March 18, however, 
to James' joy they granted a subsidy, though in making the 
grant they asked that the giving of supplies so near the beginning 
of the session might not be considered a precedent. Up to the 
end of March there was no positive lack of harmony between the 
king and parliament. Indeed, on the 26th of March, Lando re- 
ported, "things are going so smoothly the king wishes parliament 
would go on forever." 24 

The situation changed however in the next month when 
parliament made a daring piece of assertion by impeaching 
Francis Bacon for corruption in his work as judge. The attack 
was tremendously significant from Bacon's position as the highest 
judge in the land and from his being a member of the King's 
Council. In bracing himself to the attack he said in his letter to 
the Lords, March 19, "I shall not trick up innocency with 
cavillations." 25 While Bacon and the witnesses against him 
were preparing, the House went on with the attack on monop- 
olies. The king's speech to the Lords on March 26 was conde- 
scending but gracious. He said rather reproachfully that he 
would have punished any offenders out of parliament as severely 
as they would have punished them within. 26 He talked about 
how peaceful the times were and exhorted them that they should 
do "bonum" and "bene." There was something unconsciously 
humorous in the fact that the Lords voted "in view of his Ma- 
jesty's speech the 26th of March should always be a Sermon 
Day." One smiles again when one reads of the king telling the 
Commons on the 24th of April that they behaved so worthily that 
he was resolved to speak oftener to them. 27 More than one 
member must have given a sigh at the prospect. We know that 



23 O. Pari. Hist., V, 360. 

24 Cal. S. P., Ven., XVI, No. 789. 

25 O. Pari. Hist., V, 355. 

26 O. Pari. Hist., V, 379. 

27 O. Pari. Hist., V, 396. 



104 Smith College Studies in History 

James' long speeches were afflictions to his parliaments because 
when Charles I gave his brief opening speech to his first parlia- 
ment there was enormous relief expressed from "those then 
wearied from the long orations of King James that did inherit 
but the wind." 28 

The King must have felt need of graciousness in view of 
Bacon's submission to the Lords in his wonderful speech of 
April 22 where he could make no real excuses. 29 He said "Here- 
after the greatness of a judge or magistrate shall be no sanctuary 
or protection to him against guiltiness. After this example it is 
like that judges will fly from anything in the likeness of cor- 
ruption as from a serpent which tends to the purging of the 
courts of Justice and reducing them to their true honour and 
splendors." 30 The sentence against Bacon was a fine of 40,000 
pounds, imprisonment in the tower at the king's pleasure and the 
deprivation for the future of office in state or a seat in parlia- 
ment. Before the adjournment of this parliament, Yelverton, 
the former attorney, was also condemned for bribery, the same 
Yelverton who had made the king a present of 4000 pounds to 
get his attorneyship. 

The entering wedge of that topic which was to loom so large 
in the second session of the parliament came in the Declaration 
of the Commons before the adjournment of this session. 31 They 
said in this declaration that "they pity the state of English 
Christians abroad" and if the treaty the king has under way 
does not succeed — "they humbly beseech his Majesty not to suffer 
any longer delay" — they will be ready to assist him by sword. 
The fact that the Commons were insisting on more expression 
is shown by Rushworth's remarking "a second proclamation was 
issued forthwith against licentious speech touching state affairs 
for notwithstanding the strictness of the King's former command 



28 Eliot's Negotium Posterorum, Ed. Grosart, I, 45. 

29 When Gondomar said derisively, "My Lord, I wish you a good 
Easter", Bacon replied, "My Lord, I wish you a good passover." Ken- 
nett's Wilson, 736. 

30 O. Pari. Hist., V, 399. 

31 C. J., June 4, I, 639. 



James I and the Parliament of 1621 105 

the people's inordinate liberty of unreverend speech increaseth 
delay." 32 Substantially what James said about the restlessness 
evident throughout the debates was "stop discussing grievances 
in Parliament and bring them to me in my council and we shall 
redress them." 

Notwithstanding his wish for the marriage with Spain, the 
king, according to rumor, had promised that Catholics should 
not be in one whit better condition. According to Rushworth, 
he really said that "if any of that party did grow insolent, let 
his people count him not worthy to reign if he gave not extra- 
ordinary punishment." 33 

The second session of the parliament met on November 20 
and though not formally dissolved until January did not meet 
again after dismissal by the king before the Christmas recess on 
December 18. It was a session almost wholly occupied with 
foreign affairs and bitter feelings between the king and the Com- 
mons were expressed in a number of vigorous declarations. The 
situation was indeed trying. The king, as has been said, had 
some good reasons to hope that Spain might keep out of the war 
and in time do something to restore the Palatinate to Frederick. 
Meanwhile, he wished money to feed Mansfeld's soldiers lest they 
plunder the people of the Palatinate. As Digby said in reporting 
the interview which he had with the emperor, Maximilian, 
"Mansfeld's army did not consist of men who fought for their 
country, wives, or children but for money which they must have 
speedily or they are gone." Digby also implied that there was a 
larger command soon going over to the emperor. This unpleas- 
ant dependence or non-dependence on hired soldiers plagued the 
English army throughout the Stuart reigns. Digby, wisely in- 
formed as to the actual situation, justly demanded an army of 
Englishmen and the money for it. Williams, the treasurer, in 
presenting the king's speech used Digby 's plea and asked parlia- 



9 Ibid., 36. 
33 Ibid., 37. 



106 Smith College; Studies in History 

ment to grant more money and so to have this business "as to 
make his Majesty in love with Parliaments." 34 

The small English army which had already been sent were, 
as Wilson says, "bones in the way." 35 Wilson also says that 
Digby's embassy was "to as little purpose as if he had stayed at 
home." The Bavarian had already "swallowed the Electorate 
and his voraginous appetite gaped after the possession of the 
country." Digby did the best he could on his mission but was 
treated by James in cavalier fashion, the king giving him no pay 
for the time he had been gone. Wise as Digby was and genuinely 
respected, he was in an impossible situation, able to meet the 
wishes of neither king nor people. 

The Commons were sore at the king because "the great match 
with Spain was still on the carpet," 36 and because they were not 
consulted, continued to growl about their grievances. There were 
plenty of people about court to report to the king all the growl- 
ings of the Commons. In a long remonstrance with fourteen 
grievances and ten practical suggestions, the Commons formally 
set forth their point of view which was, as has been said, the 
waging of war on a larger scale for the return of the Palati- 
nate, also making it a war against Spain. 37 The king, very angry, 
retorted that "none shall presume to meddle with anything con- 
cerning our government or deep matters of state." 38 Parlia- 
ment replied humbly but firmly "in a great bustle" with another 
petition where they asserted their rights, saying that the time had 
come "that the voice of Bellona and not the voice of the turtle 
should be heard in the land." 39 

The King's speech of December 11th in reply to this petition 
is one of his most characteristic utterances. Flashes of shrewd 
and genuine wisdom alternate with obstinate and unreasonable 
assertion of the royal prerogative. He told the Commons that 



C. J., I, 485. 
Kennett, 738. 
C. J., I, 486. 
C. J., I, 487. 
Rushworth, *1. 
Rushworth, 45. 



Jambs I and the: Parliament of 1621 107 

their privileges were derived "from grace and from permission 
of our ancestors and us." For most privileges, he said, grow 
from precedent which show rather a toleration than an inherit- 
ance. He went back to his old grievance of the way the Scotch 
"hooked themselves into the cognizance of all causes," saying 
"you usurp on our prerogative Royal and meddle with things far 
beyond your reach. The difference is no greater than if we 
would tell a merchant that we had a great need to borrow money 
from him for raising an army that thereupon it would follow 
that we were bound to follow his advice in the conduct of the 
war." 40 

In regard to the Palatinate James showed a more practical 
point of view. It was not really a Protestant union which 
James sought but a religious independence of all nations. As has 
been said, to the king the question of religion was secondary, to 
the English Commons it was primary. His ignorance of the 
Commons' point of view and his tactlessness showed in his de- 
termination to maintain that the Commons had no rights, "only 
privileges given them by grace." The king was still set on the 
Spanish match. He said parliament should trust him to manage 
it without hurt to the Protestant religion. With Elizabethan in- 
sight he added, "we must not by hot persecution of our recusants 
irritate Foreign Princes of contrary religions and teach them the 
way to plague the Protestants in their dominions." He was still 
set on peace if possible, but if not, on making war in his own 
way without advice or consent of parliament. The House of 
Commons working themselves up more and more against Roman 
Catholicism and foreseeing a speedy dissolution iesolved on De- 
cember 18 to put themselves on record. Meantime the king had 
said instead of finding fault that they should have thanked him 
for all he had done, "who but those negotiating treaties can judge 
of them?" He complained that they would make him ashamed 
before foreign princes. 

Wilson says that the Commons continued their protests. 
"They thought religion insecure, for as long as the bent of his 



Rushworth, 48. 



108 Smith College Studies in History 

affections tended to the Spanish match there must needs be a 
wide gap open as an inlet for Popery." 41 The culminating pro- 
testation was recorded on December 18 with its famous kernel : 
"That the liberties, Franchises, Privileges and Jurisdictions of 
Parliament are the ancient and undoubted Birth-right and In- 
heritance of the Subjects of England; and that the arduous and 
urgent affairs concerning the King, State and Defense of the 
Realm and of the Church of England ; and the making and 
maintenance of Laws, and Redress of Mischiefs and Grievances 
which daily happen within this realm are proper subjects and 
matter of counsel and Debate in Parliament and that in the hand- 
ling and proceeding of those business every Member of the 
House of Parliament hath, and of Right, ought to have Freedom 
of Speech." 42 

This protestation was the second of the long series of in- 
formal but vital documents which were the stepping stones to 
the Puritan revolution, the first being the Apology of the Com- 
mons in 1604. The second, in 1621, repeated certain funda- 
mental assertions of the first, stating the rights and privileges 
of parliament, and thus making a distinct link of connection in 
the chain with the documents that followed. "They resolved," 
said Wilson, "to leave some prints and footsteps of their Parlia- 
mentary rights and privileges left them by their great ancestors." 

The Journals have a note to the effect that the king tore 
out this protestation with his own hand. 43 Rushworth explains 
that he did it because only part of the House was present and 
he was already treating with their messengers for adjourn- 
ment. 44 The leaders of the House, "ill-tempered spirits" as the 
king called them, were either put in prison or sent to Ireland. 45 
The doors and locks of Edward Coke's chambers in London 
were sealed and his papers were seized. The Commons felt 



"Kennett, 747. 

42 O. Pari. Hist., V, 508. 

43 C. J., I, 668. 
** C. J., 653. 

45 O. Pari. Hist., I, 525. 



The Negotium Posterorum 109 

that Gondomar, through his influence over the Privy Council, 
had a great deal to do with this harshness. 46 

After the formal dissolution of parliament on January 6, 
1622, the king appointed a special committee of the Council to 
hear and redress grievances, but we have no record of effec- 
tiveness on its part. England, chafing and distrustful, awaited 
the king's next move. 



C. J., I, 654. 



110 Smith College Studies in History 

III 

THE NEGOTIUM POSTERORUM 

The Negotium Posterorum 1 is Sir John Eliot's account of 
the meetings of the House of Commons during its sessions of 
1625, which constituted the first parliament of Charles I. The 
account was written some time after the events of which it tells, 
probably during Eliot's imprisonment in the tower between 1630 
and 1632. Allowance must be made, therefore, for the coloring 
of Eliot's point of view from the events occurring between 1625 
and the time of his writing this account. Especially must such 
allowance be made when dealing with an historian of as vivid 
imagination as Eliot, whose emotions and acts were so closely 
concerned with the personages of whom he writes. 

Eliot's account is emphatically an account of people. As 
one reads over again and again his story, one seems to be actually 
with that group, so vividly does Eliot sketch the personality, the 
mode of speaking and the reactions of each of the prominent mem- 
bers of the Commons and of the representatives of the King 
whom he sends to deal with the Commons. The events of this 
parliament are given in several other accounts, correcting Eliot's 
story in certain respects, but as a piece of parliamentary 
narration it is unsurpassed by any other such account in the 
seventeenth century. 

He makes alive the gravity of the king and parliament's joy 
in the brevity of his speeches. He traces the bewilderment 
which grew among the members as the omissions of those 
speeches became glaring question marks before their minds. 
He brings out the importance of Buckingham, the wit of May, 
the pedantry of Sir John Coke, and the latent power of Went- 
worth. He laughs at the cold rhetoric of Naunton. On the 
other hand, he makes the great leaders of the House tower in 
dignity and glow with ardent speech. Seymour and Philips did 
deliver great speeches, but some of their phrases are Eliot's 



Printed from the author's MSS- at Port Eliot and edited by Alex- 
ander Grosart for private circulation only, 1881. 



The Negotium Posterorum 111 

own, as one sees by comparison with his later speeches in the 
parliament of 1626. For example, the phrase used in Seymour's 
speech on supply, "Their luxuries and excesses had wasted 
first the treasurer and then exposed the honor of the King," 2 
is not found in any other account, but is the expression used by 
Eliot himself in his own supply speech of 1626. 3 

The parliament of 1625 met June 18th in London, hopeful 
because of the new king whose reputation was at least more 
promising for ability to meet the wishes of the nation than that 
of his father had been. His reticence kept hope alive, and his 
purity of character appealed to the strong Puritan element in 
this parliament. Rudyard, whom Eliot characterizes as "lan- 
guid in expression," and given to "generals fitter for discourse 
than counsel or debate," 4 says of the king: "I may Stricktlie say 
Ther can hardlie be found a privat man of his years soe free 
from all ill, which as it is more rare and difficult in the person 
of a King soe is it more exempla and extensive in the operation, 
and noe doubt, being a blessing in itself, will call downe more 
blessings from heaven vpon this kingdom for his sake." 5 Eliot 
says of his personal character : "In some the consideration of 
his pietie, his religious practise and devotion, his choise and 
constant preservation of that iewell in the mids't of those pres- 
tigious artes of Spaine, and his publick professions, being from 
thence returned, did cause that ioye and hope; others were 
moved by the innate sweetness of his nature, the calme habit 
and composition of his minde ; his exact government in the eco- 
nomic, the- order of his house, the rule of his affaires, the dis- 
position of his servantes, being Prince, all in a great care, and 
providence." 6 

The dissolution of the treaties with Spain — "the untying of 
those Knotts, the cutting of those Gordian yokes in which they 
were held by Spaine," — and Charles' apparent eagerness for war, 



3 Negotium Posterorum, II, 83. 
3 Forster: Life of Eliot, I, 483. 
* N. P. I, 69. 
5 N. P. I, 67. 
6 N. P. I, 41. 



112 Smith College Studies in History 

were contrasted with James' struggle to keep up "with those 
treaties, whereby religion was corrupted, iustice perverted; and 
all this through facilities and a too much Love of peace." 7 His 
brief speech at the opening of parliament pleased by its cour- 
teous tone and apparent trust in parliament : "the sence and 
shortness of his expression were well Likt, as meeting with the 
inclination of the time, which wearied with the long orations 
of King James that did inherit but the winde." s 

Underneath the feeling of hope was a determination on the 
part of the Commons to assert more vigorously than ever the 
disputed rights of parliament in taxation and in religion, and 
to understand and to direct, if possible, the action in foreign 
affairs. They did not understand how the French marriage 
had come about, bringing them a beautiful little queen with her 
Catholic faith and chapel They did not understand what 
treaties had been violated nor what kept. They knew only that 
France had broken her promise to help Mansfeld in his ex- 
pedition to recover the Palatinate, failing to allow his troops to 
go through her territory on his way to Holland. They knew — 
constant woe — that the laws against recusants were not en- 
forced and they suspected justly that money was going to be 
asked for causes of whose inwardness they were ignorant. 

Money was asked for immediately by Williams, the Lord 
Keeper, who said that all the money was spent which they had 
formerly given, and that more must be raised promptly. Crewe, 
the Speaker of the House, responded in a rather florid speech 
emphasizing over again the fundamental rights of parliament, 
freedom from arrest, freedom of speech and access to the king 
and asking for more light. He also hammered again on the 
people's desire, so strongly brought out in the parliaments of 
1621 and 1624, for rescue of the Palatinate, to England a sym- 
bol of European Protestantism. His language in regard to re- 
ligion is Scotch in its vigor, grim as the language of the Cove- 
nanters. "(You) add happiness to your crowne and state, by 



' N. P. I, 42. 

8 N. P. I, 44. 



The; Negotium Posterorum 113 

pulling downe the pride of that Anti-christian Hierarchie, and 
in abandoning by publick edict, reallie executed, that wicked 
generation of Jesuites and Seminarie preistes, who are the sonns 
of Bichrie that blow the coales of contention, incendiaries that 
lie in waite to sett combustion ; blood and powder are the badges 
of their wicked profession." 9 

Eliot's comments that the lawyer's — Crewe's — expression 
was divine, the divine's — William's — more historical and law- 
like, and that "states as divines use glosses on their texts" 
represent restlessness and bewilderment in the House's begin- 
ning. One does not wonder that there was no haste in replying 
to the request for supplies, and that the ever-popular subject 
of religion was taken up with zeal despite Rudyard's propo- 
sition that grievances should be postponed, and that they should 
"fall upon such things onlie as are necessarie, cleer and of dis- 
patch." 10 The trouble was to know what things were necessary, 
clear, and easily dispatched. To the king and council, the ne- 
cessity was money, to the parliament the necessity represented 
varied grievances, shown throughout their petitions and debates. 

In regard to religion the Commons doubtless were bigoted 
and tempted to go beyond their legal rights, especially in their 
attitude toward Montague, that bone of contention thrown 
over from James' reign. Eliot's point of view in regard to re- 
ligion was broader than that of many of his colleagues. His 
aim was to uphold the ideal of unity and purity in a positive 
way, rather than like Pym to insist on multiplying laws against 
offenders, or like Crewe to formulate against Catholics. The 
speech on religion attributed to Eliot is certainly characteristic 
of him in its idealism and breadth. He particularly speaks 
of religion in its relation to the state as its chief support and 
ground work : "Religion onlie it is that fortifies all pollicie, that 
crownes all wisdome, that is the grace of excellence .... 
religion it is that keeps the subjects in obedience, as being taught 
by God to honor his vicegerentes . . . the common obliga- 



N. P. I, 52. 
'N. P. I, 68. 



114 Smith College Studies in History 

tion amongst men, the tye of all frindship and societie, the band 
of all office and relation." 11 He thinks that uniformity in re- 
ligious observance means unity in the kingdom : "Where there 
is division in religion as it does wrong divinities it makes dis- 
tractions amongst men, and soe dissolves all ties and obligations, 
civill and natural." In characteristic phrasing he says : "What 
divisions, what factions, haie what fractions in religion this 
kingdon does not suffer, I need not recapitulat." 12 The discus- 
sion which followed seems fruitless to us, because the one prac- 
tical change possible, the lessening of the severity of the recus- 
ancy laws, was never touched. Another committee was made, 
another petition was sent to the king. 

Later on in this session the question of Montague came up, 
the Arminian preacher whose books and ideas were such a 
source of irritation to the House of Commons. Montague's books 
had been dealt tolerantly with by James. He understood their 
struggle toward the modern ideal of harmony of the best in 
the traditions of the past with the practical needs of the present, 
the struggle in which Hooker was engaged in Queen Eliza- 
beth's reign and Laud in later days. The Commons had no 
sympathy whatever with James' tolerance. To them Monta- 
gue's books were "popish and seditious." That when the 
Archbishop Abbott told him to revise his first book he should 
have replied with the production of a second equally obnoxious 
was in the eyes of the Commons an insult to the king. That 
James had not regarded it as such in no wise affected their 
opinion. 

It affected their action however ; for they took the responsi- 
bility off the new King's shoulders by hailing Montague before 
their bar as a culprit, an act quite beyond their legal rights. 
Moreover, Montague, called to examination in the House, de- 
clared that the king had approved his "tenets and opinions," 
swearing, "if that were to be a papist, so is he." Nevertheless 
the Commons managed to make out that he had harmed the 



11 N. P. I, 70-71. 
13 N. P. I, 72. 



The; Negotium Posterorum 115 

king by sowing jealousies between himself and his subjects, 
that he had slighted "those famous devines who have bene great 
lights in the church, Calvine, Beza" and others, that he had 
scorned the jurisdiction of parliament. 13 There was some dis- 
cussion over his commitment into the sergeant's hands as a 
prisoner but it was finally done with the culprit kneeling at 
the bar. 14 

To trace the affair of Montague through the year, he was 
called to the bar again on the second day of the second session, 
August 2. Meantime Charles had appointed him one of his 
chaplains and the bitter feeling of the Commons is shown in 
Eliot's account. "The Sariant thervpon being required to bring 
his prisoner to the barr, anfweard that he had left him sicke, & 
by a letter from him was advertised that his weakness was 
such as he could not travell, w ch giving no satisfaction to the 
house, that thought it an excuse, divers expressions were (used) 
vpon (it), shewing a disaffection to the man." 15 Eliot, evi- 
dently, did not sympathize with this extreme severity. The 
House, however, in spite of a message from the king that he 
had taken Montague's cause into his care, continued to assert 
their dominance in the case and to say that the king had no 
right to interfere. "The Sariant was therefore commanded to 
produce or to answer the neglect." Eliot also did not agree 
with those who took occasion to argue the opinions of Mon- 
tague. "Descending into the subtilties of the schoolemen, 
about the infallibility of grace, the antecedent & consequent 
wills of God." 16 It is said that both now, and later in Pym's 
report 17 on Montague in April, 1626, they decided "not to medle 
with the doctrinal points of his workes." 18 In this report of 
Pym's the clergyman was declared to have distributed the peace 
of the church and of the Kingdom." The king's power and favor, 



13 N. P. I, 105-7. 

14 N. P. I, 109. 
1S N. P. II, 13. 

16 N. P. II, 15. 

17 N. P. II, 15. 

18 Fawsley Debates, Camden Society, Appendix, Sect. IV. 



116 Smith College; Studies in History 

however, saved Montague from farther punishment and obtained 
his release on bond. The House worried him yet again in 
1628, in spite of Charles' command to them in 1626 to be silent. 
Only when Parliament was perforce silenced on all matters in 
1629 did they let this bone alone. Montague was then made 
Bishop of Chichester. 19 

News that the plague which had broken out in London was 
greatly increasing alarmed the members. A formal petition 
on religion 20 was hurriedly prepared and presented by a com- 
mittee of both Houses. It contained sixteen points, asking, of 
course, for the enforcement of laws against recusants, against 
the holding of Catholic services, and, constructively, desiring 
that teaching and preaching might be more carefully supplied 
by abler schoolmasters and ministers. In illustration of the 
feeling of the House it is worth noting that when the question 
of supply came up it was proposed that "recusants should give 
double amounts !" 21 

To turn from the question of religion, most important in 
the eyes of parliament, to that of supply, far more important 
in the eyes of the king, at the very beginning of the session 
they had been asked for money at once "in some unusual way," 
as Williams put it, "if ye finde the vsuall waie too slacke." 22 
Seymour proposed one subsidy and one-fifteenth, a proposal 
absurdly small. The final vote was to give two subsidies which 
amounted to only one hundred and forty thousand pounds. The 
engagements of the king, obviously, required many times that 
sum. 23 Eliot gives as reasons for the small sums offered what 
he judges to be the chief conclusions of the debate following: 
First, it was too early in the parliament, "then that the condi- 
tion of the people, through the manie violation (s) of their 
rights, in the generall liberties of the kingdom, the particular 
priviledges of that house, their burdens, their oppressions, 



19 Diet. Nat. Biog. 

20 N. P. I, 84-91. 

21 N. P. I, 78. 

22 N. P. I, 146. 

23 See Fawsley Debates, Intro., p. vi. 



The; Negotium Posterorum 117 

which noe times els could parallell, spoke them less able; & that 
complaint postposd, shew'd them more affectionat." He touches 
lightly now on the real kernel of the reluctance to give more, 
"there being noe knowledg of an enemye," 24 a reason heavily 
emphasized in the second session of 1625. 

In regard to the supply the business was unwisely started. 
From any legal point of view, the king should have stated at 
the beginning of the session the sum he desired and the pur- 
poses for which it was to be used. On the other hand, the 
Commons should not have hastily pitched on a sum at random. 
The king again should not have accepted that sum, when he 
knew quite well its inadequacy and was fully aware that he 
should have to ask for more. Also, as Gardiner so clearly 
brings out in the introduction to the Fawsley Debates, each 
party felt that the aims of the other were not understood nor 
appreciated. The king wished money to meet his obligation to 
his continental allies and to pursue the war on land ; the parlia- 
ment wished to emphasize the increase of the navy and the 
attack on Spain by sea. Finally, the Commons were genuinely 
ignorant of the uses to which their supply last voted had been 
used. They believed it had been given for Mansfeld's expe- 
dition to recover the Palatinate. That expedition had been a 
failure. No profit or honor had come out of the enthusiasm 
which had united king and people in declaring war at the be- 
ginning of James's last parliament, in 1624. Eliot, especially, as 
Vice-Admiral of Devon, had known the distressing state in which 
sailors had come home during the early summer. "The millions 
of treasure spent without success in profit or honor to the 
kingdom, manie thousand men, that had perisht & beene lost, 
in the Pallatinat & w th Manffeilt." 25 This statement was an 
exaggeration, but that money had been ill-used and squandered 
was true. When the king had so mistakenly intimated his ac- 
ceptance of the two subsidies, three-fourths of the parliament 



u N. P. I, 75, 76. 
25 N. P. I, 76. 



118 Smith College Studies in History 

fearing the plague, went away understanding that business was 
nearly concluded. 

In fact, the disease was increasing rapidly with the sum- 
mer's height. This was the latest wave of the plague which had 
been sweeping over Europe from time to time since the Cru- 
sades. Eliot says : "The sickness was then risen to a great in- 
fection & mortalities, noe part of the cities did stand free." 26 
And again, "the epedemicall infection of the plague being so 
vniversallie disperst, that all persons were suspected & in ielosie, 
men, if they could, even flying from themselves ; the houses, 
streets & waies, naie even the fields & hedges, almost in all 
place neer London & about it (besides the miserable calamities 
of the citie) presenting dailie new spectacles of mortalities." 27 
On the 9th of July, Locke wrote to Carlton : "The sickness 
increaseth still more and more ; the Bill specified this weeke 
but 1,222, and of the sicknes but 500 and odd, but by common 
opinion there died many more. It is not onely in the cittie, but 
spares neither Court nor country. Upon Sunday last, the 3. of 
this present, there were 3 carried out of the backe part of the 
Courte at Whitehall (the K. and Q. then there) sicke, who all 
died since of the plague." 28 

With this terror hanging over them and seeking adjourn- 
ment, the quarter of the House remaining took up the tonnage 
and poundage bill. Tonnage and poundage had been granted 
to the king for life since the reign of Henry VI. Any dis- 
cussion or hesitation about its grant by parliament was sure to be 
considered an affront by the sovereign. It was to him as much 
a special prerogative as the right to open parliament. In the 
minds of some members of the Commons, however, since the 
Bates's case of 1606, tonnage and poundage had become but 
one of a large group of impositions, over which parliament 
and king had disagreed all through the former reign. Therefore, 
the leaders of the Commons had decided to debate the whole 



1 N. P. I, 84. 
N. P. I, 123. 
Fawsley Debates, App., p. 152. 



The; Negotium Posterorum 119 

subject of indirect taxes before again granting tonnage and 
poundage to a king for life. Consequently, under the existing 
circumstances, the grant was made but for one year, suspend- 
ing further action until investigation could be made by a full 
House. The bill was accepted by the Lords, but naturally not 
signed by the king. One would have liked to have had a 
glimpse of Charles's emotions when the bill was presented to 
him. His indignation must have been great. 

After tonnage and poundage was disposed of came a ques- 
tion of the Yorkshire election, involving the election of Went- 
worth. Eliot made his second speech in this session, vexed be- 
cause Wentworth pleaded his own cause in the House. Eliot's 
speech showed part of that idealization of the House which 
made him extravagantly sensitive to its honor. He says : "in 
senatum venit, he comes into this Senat, but w th a will to ruine 
it; for soe I must interpret the intention of that act, that would 
destroie the priviledge. But did say it was a member did it? 
I must retract that error in the place, or be fals to the opinion 
w ch I have; for either by the election he pretends, or for this 
act & insolence, I cannot hould him worthie of that name & soe, 
(involving both questions vnder one) as a full determination of 
his case, let vs from hence expell him." 29 

This is harsh judgment. Considering the merits of the case, 
the election seems to have been one under genuine dispute. At 
any rate the new election brought in Wentworth triumphantly to 
the second session where he did good service. Eliot's description 
of Wentworth's character was written after their ways had 
parted. Eliot appreciated his eloquence, his keen reasoning 
power, "his abilities great both in judgment and presuasion." 
He noted truly his imagination — "his descriptions exquisite" — 
and his pride, but he analyzed wrongly when he spoke of 
Wentworth's virtues as 'seldom directed to good ends and when 
they had that color some other secret mov'd them." 30 

The session finally closed under very different circumstances 



N. P. I, 102. 
N. P. I, 104. 



120 Smith College Studies in History 

from those expected. The king, following the suggestion of the 
Duke of Buckingham, proposed a new subsidy. Eliot tells the 
story vividly. Buckingham sent first for a group of his special 
friends at midnight, most of whom consented to his plan. Others 
among them, especially Sir Humphrey May, struggled to dis- 
suade him from such a proposition, thus in spite of the fact that 
May was Chancellor of the Duchy and presumably the king's 
man. Finally, "having travaild with much industrie in that ser- 
vice, but in vaine, he came in great hast to a gentleman whom he 
thought more power full with the Duke and knew to be affec- 
tionate to the public and him he importund to a new attempt 
and triall for staie or diversion of that worke." 31 

Eliot argued with Buckingham on the ground that the king 
had professed satisfaction with the two subsidies already given, 
and that the occasion was unseemly, when a large part of the 
House had gone away. Such a proposal at that time would seem 
a breach of confidence, "an ambuscado and surprise ; which at no 
time could be honorable toward subjects." 32 It was, evidently, a 
long conference. In the course of it Eliot also warned Bucking- 
ham of the disfavor into which he personally would fall if 
such a proposition were made. 

In reply Buckingham said that the two subsidies had been 
accepted "in respect of the affection to the King, not for satis- 
faction to his business. That the absence of the Commons was 
their owne fault and error, and their neglect must not prejudice 
the State." 33 Buckingham brought out the point, which he evi- 
dently felt would most meet the approval of parliament, that 
the money was needed for the fleet. Eliot, as Vice-Admiral of 
Devon, was certainly interested in the fleet and it was natural 
that Buckingham, as Lord High Admiral, should also em- 
phasize that side of the equipment. Eliot plead the unwis- 
dom of "alienation of the affections of the subiectes, who being 
pleased were a fountaine of supplie, with out whom those 



81 N. P. I, 110. 
"N. P. I, 111. 
33 N. P. I, 112. 



The Negotium Posterorum 121 

streames would soon drie up." 34 Though Eliot's persuasion 
was in vain we know from his speech in the second session of 
parliament that he and Buckingham parted still friends. 

Sir John Coke was chosen to present the king's request show- 
ing what had been spent, and what promises had been made to 
Charles' allies on the Continent. He said boldly that about three 
hundred and fifty thousand pounds were wanted. "The king 
and the Lord Admiral and others have given from their own 
estates seventy thousand pounds." He added, "shall we pro- 
claims our owne poverty by loosing all that is bestowed vpon 
it . . . the peace of christendome, the state of religion de- 
pend upon this fleet, the adversaries deliver verie insolent 
speeches ever since the taking of Breda." 

Coke seemed to forget that the natural question would be : 
"Why were the adversaries allowed to take Breda?" 

All he said was, "The French encline to civill warr." 

"How did England happen to be mixed up in French af- 
fairs?" the listening members would ask. 

"What have we to reunite the princes ... to appose 
the Catholic league but the reputation of Mansfielt's army and 
the expectation of our fleet," 33 was his reply. 

The reputation of Mansfeld had proved a tottering support, 
a feeble buffer for any Protestant protection. 

The motion of Coke "died and perished" and through the 
Lords the Commons sent a messenger to the king asking for a 
dismissal. The king replied that he would shortly answer the 
petition of religion and they would be adjourned July 11. But, 
and this was a large "but" — they were to meet again at Ox- 
ford August l. 36 

The parliament did not like to meet at Oxford, the university 
town being a peculiar seat of royal privilege. Also rumors of 
the plague being there had come to them. But probably Eliot's 
account of the plague there is exaggerated as the king would 



N. P. I, 112. 
N. P. I, 116. 
N. P. I, 123. 



122 Smith College Studies in History 

not have been likely to call parliament where there would be 
danger to himself. As a matter of fact, a member of the House 
states that "no Parliamente man died of it while we were there." 37 
After the adjournment in the last part of July Eliot went 
home to Cornwall and as he journeyed along the coast, complaints 
met him continually of the ravaging of Turkish pirates. The 
description he gives is so vivid both of the ravaging of the pirate 
and of the inadequacy of the protection of the coast that I 
quote it in full. "About the time of the adiornment of the Par- 
liament from London, the Turks were growen verie infestuous 
to the marchants. Divers ships & vessels they had taken, w th 
a multitude of captives, drawn from thm. In the west parts 
they had made the coasts soe dangerous through their spoiles, 
as few dar'd putt forth of their harbors; hardlie in them was 
the securitie thought enough. The boldness & insolenc of these 
piratts was beyond all comparison, noe former times hav- 
ing beene exampled w th the like. Their adventure formerlie on 
those seas was rare, almost vnhard of, w ch made their comming 
then more strange. That being aggravated by their frequencie & 
number, w ch their dailie spoiles did witness, & those much 
heightened by their bouldness, it made a great impression on 
the Countrie, & possesst it w th much fear, that divers alarums 
it received, w ch made divers motions in the people, who, as their 
manner is, fain'd or enlarged the cause after apprehension of 
their fancies, w ch passing to their neighbors, still affected them 
w th more, vntill it had a general influenc throughout all even 
the cheife townes & strengths not privilegd or exempted. They 
had in some parts entred even into the mouthes of the close 
harbors, & shewd themselves in them, & all the open roads they 
vs'd confidentlie as their owne. Some ships they had taken 
vnder the fforts & castells. Nothing did deterr them, but the 
whole Sea seem'd theirs. In Cornwall they had landed, & car- 
ried divers prisoners from the shore. All fishermen that stird 
became their prey & purchase. They had gained in that Summer, 
at least, twelve hundred christians, the loss of whom caused 



Fawsley Debates : Appendix, p. 151. 



The; Nbgotium Posterorum 123 

great lamentation w th their frinds. This man bewayld his sonns, 
that his father, another his brother, a foorth his servant, & the 
like ; husbands & wives, w th al relations els of nature & civilitie did 
complaine; besides the preiudice of the marchants, the losing of 
their ships, the interruption of their trade, w ch made a generall 
damp on all things, commodities not being vendible where the 
transportation is denied; this made a cry and exclamation that 
noe part of that countrie did stand free, noe person but was af- 
fected w th that sence hereof a dailie intelligenc had been given 
to the ministers of the State, w th special addresses therevpon 
to implore for some releife. Divers ships were then readie of 
the ffleet, w ch might have beene commanded to that service. They 
lay idle in their harbours, in the Thames, at Portsmouth, & 
elsewhere all their men and provisions being aboard. They 
were to attend the preparation of their fellows, for w ch gen- 
erallie was appointed the Rendezvous at Plimouth ; soe as this 
imploiment would have drawne them to that place. Their 
countenanc in the passage would have dispeld those pirats. Noe 
charge had been occasiond to the King noe wast of provisions, 
noe vnreadiness in the ships, noe disorder to the service, but 
rather an advantage given in all ; yet nothing could be gotten, 
noe ship might be remov'd, the trade & marchants were neg- 
lected, the coast was left vnguarded, the Countrie stood expos'd, 
as if in expiation of some sinne, it had been made a sacrifice to 
those monsters." 38 

This condition of things becoming known to Eliot, he put 
it directly before the King. In response, eight ships were or- 
dered to be sent to Plymouth through the Commissioners of the 
Navy. This was a body, as Eliot says, appointed "for a check 
and superintendanc to the Admiral, that the kingdom stood not 
too much intrusted to one man, but after they be came only 
subservient to the Admiral." Although the order was delivered 
to Sir John Coke, the head of the Commission, it was laid 



N. P. II, 3-5. 



124 Smith College Studies in History 

aside and unheeded. The expectations of the Country were 
all frustrated." 39 

Irritation over this new neglect was the more marked because 
at the same time seven merchants' ships were consigned to the 
French. This loan of the ships to the French opened another 
most perplexing question before the Commons and people. These 
merchants, who through the treaties of the merchants' alliance 
were in duty bound to join a fleet to help France, found the 
fleet was to go against French Protestants. D'Ewes says in re- 
gard to England's feeling toward the French Protestants : "We 
and they made and constituted, with all the other Protestants in 
the world, one true Catholic Church," 40 a curious expression for 
the seventeenth century. When the Huguenots of La Rochelle 
revolted, the English ships in accordance with some un- 
known clause of the treaty were bound to help the French King 
against his Protestant subjects. The course of double dealing 
which followed showed the struggle of Charles and Buckingham 
(as in the matter of religion) to please the French and at the 
same time not to offend the English. Coke wrote to Conway: 
"our seamen, generally, are most resolutly Protestant and will 
rather be killed or thrown overboard than be forced to shed the 
blood of protestants." 41 

Pennington, the commander of the fleet, protested that he 
would take the ships over to France but would not stay and 
see them used against French Protestants. 42 Sir Ferdinando 
Gorges, one of the captains, an earlier explorer along the New 
England coast, slipped away and returned to London. Further 
mutiny was saved by peace being made with the Huguenots by 
Richelieu. But the affair — as much as was known of it, as the 
news gradually leaked out — rankled in the minds of Englishmen. 
Charles's double dealing, the whole facts of which we do not 
yet know, was strongly suspected even though the issue was 
better than he deserved to have it. 



39 N. P. II, 6-7. 

40 Autobiography, p. 164. 

* Cal. S. P. Dom., IV, No. 40. 
*Cal. S. P. Dom., IV, No. 78, 79. 



The; Negotium Posterorum 125 

Therefore, when the parliament met at Oxford, on August 
1, reluctant and suspicious, the smoldering dissatisfaction was 
kindled to a flame at once, because of the release granted by 
crown officials to a Jesuit imprisoned at Exeter. This was 
done twelve days after the adjournment of the last parliament 
when the promise had been especially given of enforcement of 
the laws against Jesuits. Eliot rushed into speech, into a tender 
and gallant defense of the King and blame of his ministers. "I 
cannot thinke this rightly issued from the King or if it did that 
he rightlie understood it." He excused the King, intimating that 
he was misled by his affections. "Harts they have still and 
affections like to others. And trust will whaer love had gone 
before, therefore, I doubt this some abuse of ministers who 
preferr their owne corruptions before religion or the King.'* 4 " 

This keynote of attack on bad counsel is struck again and 
again through the speeches that follow. Marten, the judge who 
had unjustly condemned Eliot in the Nutt affair, a condemna- 
tion magnanimously ignored by Eliot who calls him "learned 
and grave" and says he spoke "that truth which was written on 
each hart", 44 declared the ambassadors sent to arrange the 
French marriage treaty unfit for their work. These am- 
bassadors — the Earl of Holland and the Earl of Carlisle — really 
were little responsible for the conditions of the treaty. As in 
regard to the Huguenot affair of La Rochelle, here, too, we are 
ignorant of the real facts and we do not know what was arranged 
by the French marriage treaties in the previous autumn and 
winter. Much more then were the members of Parliament ig- 
norant of the facts, but again they suspected double dealing on 
the part of the King. 

After reprimanding Montague, as has been already related, 
the king, Conway and Coke presented the need of supply and 
threw open the great debate which lasted for a week. It was 
a debate marked with much real eloquence on both sides. On 
the king's side Coke, Buckingham, May, Heath and Weston 



N. P. II, 9, 10. 
N. P. II, 11, 12. 



126 Smith College; Studies in History 

were the important speakers. On the side of the House, Sey- 
mour, Philips, Sir Edward Coke, and Sir Nathaniel Rich spoke 
with vigor and assurance. Wentworth and Alvord made brief 
remarks but said enough to keep themselves out of the next 
parliament. To prevent their election the king had them ap- 
pointed sheriffs, together with Edward Coke, Seymour and 
Philips. 45 

The tone of the debate varied on different days. The debate 
of the 5th, in which Philips, Seymour and Sir Edward Coke op- 
posed passionately the gift of more money without knowledge 
of the enemy and without good advice, was very different from 
the dispassionate and practical talking of the 6th where Eliot de- 
fended Buckingham as well as the king and where Rich summed 
up concisely in his petition of five heads the inquiries of the 
Commons. On the 9th came Buckingham's speech, answering 
the petition of both Houses framed from the nucleus of Rich's 
five heads, a speech followed by Coke's statements of sums needed 
to meet the king's engagements, amounting to over three hundred 
thousand pounds. The final debate against giving came on the 
10th with Philips and Seymour in opposition. 

Two speeches of Eliot's are recorded. One is found only 
in the Negotium Posterorum, a speech based on researches of 
Sir Robert Cotton prepared for the 10th, which Gardiner 
argues was never spoken. The other, a brief defense of Buck- 
ingham and attack on the Navy Commissioners, given on the 
6th of August, is omitted by the Negotium Posterorum, re- 
ferred to in the main account of Fawsley, and given in full in 
the appendix. Weston, Naunton, and May, urged for the King. 
The discussion died away on the 11th and 12th under 
knowledge of the impending dismissal, which was inexorably 
made. As the closing sentiment of the House a protestation of 
Granville's was adopted declaring loyalty, affection, and readi- 
ness "in a convenient time and in a parliamentary way freely 
and dutifully to do our utmost endeavor to discover and re- 
forme the abuses and grievances of the realme & state, & in the 



Strafford Letters, p. 29. 



The Negotium Posterorum 127 

like sort to afford all necessarie supplie to his most excellent ma 
vpon his present, & all other his iust occasions & designes." 46 
The "parliamentarie way" was not the king's way. 

To take up the events more in detail, first, the chief arguments 
on the king's side were that the Commons were merely asked 
to carry through the work which they themselves had started 
and demanded when they cried for war in the parliament of 
1624. Conway said: "The war was occasioned by Parliament in 
the counsell which they gave to the dissolution to the treaties." 47 
May "vrg'd againe that the King's ingagement was by them, & 
that he vndertooke but the designes w ch they propounded; & 
that therevpon he inferd that the Parliament ought not to re- 
cead." 48 Coke said that (the war) "being the effect of the 
counsell given by Parliament, by the Parliament he desir'd to 
follow & accomplish it." 49 And Buckingham said "my Master 
entred into this business when ye had given the councell & 
the means to execute it." 50 The king, himself, is reported to 
have told the parliament that they had drawn him into a war 
and must find means to maintain it. 51 

xA.gain the speakers on the king's side emphasized all through 
that the money was desired for the fleet. In the first place, Con- 
way asked for forty thousand pounds for that special purpose. 
It was the fleet emphasizing the war by sea which was the spe- 
cial instrument of parliament's wishes. Coke said four hun- 
dred thousand pounds had already been spent for the navy and 
ten thousand men were waiting at Plymouth to embark; "they 
wants yet much monie to supplie them, some necessaries for 
the ships, some provisions for the men, w th out w ch neither can 
be serviceable." He sagely hinted "of a designe to trouble 
Ireland & an increase of the enemies navie in the Low Coun- 
tries, w th a purpose to thrust over part of their Armies into 



N. P. II, 205. 

N. P. II, 17. 

N. P. II, 27. 
1 N. P. II, 20. 
' N. P. II, 63. 
l Cal. S. P. Dom., Ill, No. 91. 



128 Smith College Studies in History 

England." 52 May urged giving by an "apothegm" as Eliot puts 
it, "that monie given in that house might be cast into the Sea, 
& soe some treasure lost, but not given, posteritie might rue it, 
reservation in such cases being more dangerous than adven- 
ture." 53 Eliot admired the wit of May and that the Chancellor 
of the Duchy always drew close attention when he arose is 
shown by the fact that the accounts of his speeches in different 
authorities differ very slightly. 

The chief objections to giving made by the speakers on the 
other side were those which were summed up by Rich that griev- 
ances in religion were not redressed, that their enemy was not 
known, that the counsel was poor, that Parliament ought to have 
the chance to investigate the state of the King's income, and 
finally that the question of impositions ought to be cleared up. 54 
This last point was made because Charles had refused to sign 
the tonnage and poundage bill. 

The points of Rich were taken up by a committee of both 
Lords and Commons, who made a new petition which was sent 
to the King. The reply to this was given by Buckingham. It 
was a reply marked by a certain winning frankness which makes 
it impossible to accuse Buckingham of insincerity. To the preju- 
diced this frankness approaches jauntiness in skimming sur- 
faces and in evading real issues. But at least no accuser can 
find subtle deception in Buckingham's arguments. His opti- 
mism about the success of continental affairs, hardly in accor- 
dance with the facts, is an optimism characteristic of him 
throughout his life. His assertion of consultations, formally and 
informally, with the Council of War and the King's Council 
was quite true, even though the Council was a notoriously weak 
body and the king's effort to brace up reputation through such 
council was as Dicey says "but an evidence of the weakness of 
the sovereignty." 55 It was also quite true that the king was 



N. P. II, 17. 
N. P. II, 28. 
N. P. II, 50. 
History of the Privy Council, p. 127. 



The; Negotium Posterorum 129 

"empty pocketed for the navy" after having supplied his friends 
and allies. Buckingham had given of his own money and bor- 
rowed from his friends for the kingdom's needs. It was, more- 
over, a fact never sufficiently emphasized by historians of this 
period that the value of money was not what public opinion 
supposed it to be, the coinage having not yet recovered from 
its debasement under Henry VIII, and for that reason the king 
never had the amount he appeared to have. Most charac- 
teristic of Buckingham's words and actions is his saying "better 
the fleet goe out and perish half then now not goe ; for it would 
show want of Councell and experience in the design, want of 
courage in the execution, and would argue weakness and beag- 
gerie of the kingdom as not to able to go through with such 
design." 56 

In regard to the ships sent to France, Buckingham's saying 
"It is not at all time fit for kings to give accompt and councels." 57 
savors of impudence, but was not so intended. 

The petition had said "yea but wher is the enemie?" 

"My master gave me command to bid you name the enemie 
yourselves" was hardly a satisfactory answer, no more satisfac- 
tory than was the answer to the question "who gave Councell 
to meet" again when the plague was still raging. "The business 
itself and the necessitie of that gave that Councell." 58 

The speeches of May and of Naunton also ignored definite 
facts. May had already said that if they did not give posterity 
might rue it, reservation was more dangerous than adventure. 59 
Weston, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, promised that if 
supply was given they should meet again in the winter to obtain 
redress of their grievances. 

Heath was the one important speaker on the king's side not re- 
ported by Eliot. His speech in the Fawsley Papers was telling 
because he came straight across to the point. "The king's 



N. P. II, 68. 

N. P. II, 69. 

N. P. II, 71. 

1 N. P. II, 28. 



130 Smith College Studies in History 

estate, like a shippe, hath a great leak." 60 "The leak must be 
closed," he argued (regarding its cause). Sir John Coke gave 
an account of the King's obligations. Eliot says : "by infinit 
calculation and accompts was to confound the intelligenc of 
his hearers." 61 Then the debate of the 10th followed with full 
vigor. Philips made one of his great speeches. Seymour at- 
tacked the Duke directly and, on the next day, Shirland, a new 
speaker, admired by Eliot, spoke to the point. Precedence of 
supply before grievance was the center of these speeches. Philips, 
especially, emphasized the necessity of redress of grievance and 
of constant application of good counsels. Gardiner's assertion 
that feeling against Buckingham had not begun in this parlia- 
ment is scarcely justified by the facts of these speeches. In his 
first speech of August 4th Philips had said, speaking of the ig- 
norance and confusion of the people's mind in regard to foreign 
affairs, that "flattering councils of servants ***** i m( j ^ e 
trayed him to the nets of (the Spaniards) those subtle, fox-like, 
artificial, faithless people;" 62 and again that "counsells were 
there monopolized * * * the whole wisdome was supposed to 
be comprehended in one man." 63 Seymour had also contrasted 
the ministers of the Stuarts with those of Elizabeth. "They 
are the men which bring this necessitie ; that they have exhausted 
thus his treasures, spent his revenews." 64 Eliot, himself, in the 
speech given in the appendix to the Fawsley Papers but omitted 
in the Negotium Posterorum, blames not Buckingham but the 
Commissioners of the Navy. 

In reply to the precedent argument about attack on bad 
counsel of the past May gave one of his epigrammatic speeches : 
"Let noe man dispise the presidents of antiquitie ; noe man 
adore them, though they are venerable yet they are noe gods, 
examples are strong arguments, being proper, but times alter, 
& w th them oft, their reasons, everie parliament, as each man, 



60 Fawsley Debates: p. 18. 
61 N. P. II, 72. 

63 N. P. II, 32. 

03 N. P. II, 34. 

64 N. P. II, 25. 



The Negotium Posterorum 131 

must be wise w th his owne wisdom, not his ffathers. a dramme 
of present wisdom is more pretious than mountaines of that w ch 
was practis'd in ould times." 65 

Eliot's two speeches on supply require some comment. The 
first was probably spoken on August 6th and is omitted in Eliot's 
own account because it did not represent his point of view when 
the narrative about the parliament was written. As has been 
said, Seymour and Philips had already criticized Buckingham for 
the waste of money and small profits gained by supply al- 
ready given for the navy. Eliot, on the other hand, says : "but 
I dare, in my conscience, cleare and vindicate that noble Lord 
who hath had some aspirations laid upon him ; and that if there 
hath been any abuse in the fleet it is not his fault, for there is 
a commission for the furnishing of this Navy * * * and there- 
fore, the Commissioners, if any, faultie." 

The other topic of his speech is the same on which he en- 
larges in his famous supply speech of 1626, "yet God forbid wee 
should bee soe limited, that, upon whatsoever occasion, wee 
should give noe more * * * God forbid that wee should denie 
his Majestie supplie if there bee cause." 66 . Even believing in 
Buckingham's blamelessness, it must have taken some courage 
to say these words. 

The other speech, of August 10th, Gardiner believes was pre- 
pared by Cotton and Eliot in common but was never spoken. 
A speech of Seymour's is put in its place. Gardiner gives two 
chief reasons for his conjecture : First, the speech is given as 
spoken in no other authority. Second, Weston's speech in re- 
ply addresses itself to the arguments of Seymour rather than 
to those of Eliot. He accounts for Eliot's comment : "this in- 
flam'd the affection of the house & pitcht it wholie on the imi- 
tation of their ffathers" by a surmise that the speech was passed 
around in manuscript and so read by the members. 67 

I incline to the views of Forster and of Grosart that the speech 



N. P. II, 84. 

1 Fawsley Debates, App., p. 138. 
Fawsley Debates, Preface, xxi. 



132 Smith College Studies in History 

was delivered. Weston's phrase, "These disorders have not been 
in his Majestie's tyme" 08 refers far more evidently to the prece- 
dents quoted by Eliot than to anything in Seymour's speech. 
Also, Eliot's direct retort to May's epigrams : ' 'Tis true 
presidents are noe gods, yet some veneration they require, the 
honor of antiquitie is great, though it be not an idoll," 09 shows a 
quick retort and connection. Moreover the attack on Buckingham 
does not seem to me either direct or severe or out of harmony 
with Eliot's defence of the Duke on the 6th day of August. Poor 
counsel had been much more severely arraigned by Seymour and 
by Philips. Finally the accounts of these last days vary so much 
in the list of speakers that little weight should be attached to 
the inclusion or omission of any particular speech in any account. 
The speech itself is not particularly vigorous or original. Eliot 
contrasts the ministers of James's early years trained by Queen 
Elizabeth with those of James' later days. He greatly over- 
praises Somerset. He refers to Coke's account of the state 
of the revenues as a disgrace — "all vasted and anticipated — ex- 
hausted from the people." The precedents quoted to show the 
abuse of ministers in earlier centuries, interspersed with numer- 
ous Latin quotations, by no means show the illumination of his 
great "three precedent" speech in 1626. 70 In short the descrip- 
tions and comments of Eliot in the Posterorum are of far more 
interest than are his speeches. 

We have hinted at his sketches of individuals. It is fitting 
to close this study by quoting his characterization of the House 
as a whole, one example of that idealization of the Commons 
which underlies all his political ideas. The characterization is 
given in connection with the disorderly proceedings of one Clarke 
who criticised the House with "bitter invectives" for implying 
censure of Buckingham. 71 The man was made a prisoner kneel- 
ing before the bar. "This judgment, as their whole proceeding in 
like cases, is observable for their order, their gravitie is great in all 



Fawsley Debates, 112. 
'N. P. II, 91. 

Forster: Life of Sir John Eliot I. 511. 
N. P. II, 51. 



The; Negotium Posterorum 133 

things, this more punctuallie does express it. * * * * noe per- 
sonal touches are admitted in anie argument or dispute, noe 
cavills or exceptions nor anie member to be named or wher 
ther is contrarietie & dissent may ther be mention of the per- 
sons but by periphrasis & description, all bitterness is excluded 
from their dialect, all words of scandall & aspersion ; noe man 
may be interrupted in his speech but for transgression of that 

rule, or breach of some other order of the house ; in all other 

things the privileg houlds throughout; the business, as the per- 
son has that freedom to pass quietly to the end; no disparite 
or odds makes a difference in that course; he that does first 
stand up, has the first liberty to be heard; the meanest burgess 
has as much favor as the best knight or counsellor, all sitting in 
one capacitie of Commoners, & in the like relation to their 
Countries." 72 



"N. P. II, 52. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




020 679 356 9 



